One More Stupid Love Song
by slightlysmall
Summary: A collection of one-shots loosely based on songs. See chapter list for songs and pairings. Various pairings, eras, and ratings - all T or under. Warnings for individual chapters given at the start of each.
1. Somebody that I Used to Know DracoPansy

**A/N: I still don't see J.K. Rowling when I look in the mirror. The title of this fic belongs to Gotye. A million thanks to my husband, who Betas my work even when he doesn't really want to. :)**

Scorpius walks between Astoria and me as we venture through Diagon Alley. Like any 4-year-old, he stares at everything like he's never been here before. "Daddy, look at the owls! Do you think I could have a pet owl when I go to Hogwarts?"

I try my best to hide my smile. "We'll talk about that in a few years, son. When you're old enough."

"I want to be old enough now!"

Astoria smiles and comforts him and promises that he is old enough for ice cream if he can behave for the whole trip. He quiets down as we enter Flourish and Blotts. Astoria separates from me to browse on her own, and I make sure Scorpius holds my hand. Glancing up from the book I'd taken from the shelf, I look into familiar brown eyes a few rows over. They haven't noticed me yet, or at least no shock has registered in the face of the woman I once said I loved, but her eyes look just like they used to and I find myself a million years ago, at Hogwarts.

It's only now, looking at her, that I realize how often I do think about us - or what once was us. Is what we had really love? We pretended Hogwarts was our kingdom and we ruled together. Her head on my lap, my hand in hers along her waist as we reclined in our Common Room like it was our throne room. But in front of me now was a woman, one with lines around her eyes, and a frown on the mouth that once told me she was so happy with me she could die right then with no regrets. I wonder if she regrets it now.

I was glad that she was happy. But it was some sort of teenage theater, where because I was king and she was queen, we had to be together and her presence became an addicting sadness, one that I almost felt that I needed. But after the war, she ended it so quickly and I'm still not sure why she left or where she went. When we saw each other for the first time, at Daphne's wedding, it was a cordial nod, a "Draco," "Pansy," exchanged and moved on. I was already with Astoria, and she had some man I'd never met draped on her arm, attending her every move, and I hoped to God I had never looked like that around her. I never needed her, not really. She set herself up to be the prize to the king of the castle and that was me. Sixth year, she kept me at a distance, and she made sure I knew that if I ever fell, she would move on to whoever replaced me.

I think back to stolen kisses in the hallway, the look in her eyes like she idolized me, her sweet look of surprise when I asked her to the Yule Ball. But as quickly as they came, the good flashbacks stop. In my mind, the adoration in her eyes is replaced with fury as we yell at each other in the middle of the night, her wand out and mine joining it, shouting curses and counter-curses as threats and not actually using the magic, waking up fascinated third-years, who stand in the shadows of the stairwell to watch. I caught her kissing Blaise during sixth year, and in the fight that followed she managed to have me convinced that I all but pressed her lips to his. And that was just one of many times she'd screwed me over and convinced me that I made her do it.

Now, in Flourish and Blotts, she finally notices my staring. Her dark brown eyes are surprised, then soft, then angry. Scorpius looks up from the picture book that had caught his attention. "Daddy, who's that lady you're staring at?" He's talking too loud, like always. Pansy and I break eye contact at the same time. When we got home that afternoon, I would have a few things to teach my son about decorum. But for now, I had to answer him.

"She's no one important, Scorpius." I was talking too loudly as well. I wanted her to hear me. "Just somebody that I used to know."


	2. Our Song RoseScorpius

**A/N: I'm neither JKR nor Taylor Swift; the characters belong to the former and the song "Our Song" to the latter. I re-wrote the chorus into something more Scorrose-y, but kept the general structure. A bit of Rose/Scorpius fluff for the Taylor Swift Insp. Challenge and the SongFic Boot Camp. Also in celebration of my first wedding anniversary and therefore dedicated to my wonderful husband.**

**Rated: **K

**Warnings:** None.

* * *

They sat in The Three Broomsticks, snow falling softly outside, the radio playing in the background. Rose sat across from Scorpius, suddenly silent, her eyes glassy like they get when she is thinking.

"Rose? Is everything okay?"

"What? Yes, it's fine. It's just- this song is Grandma and Grandpa Weasley's song." Scorpius paused to listen. It was an older song by Celestina Warbeck, something about brewing up a cauldron of love.

"What do you mean- their song?"

"You know, the song that defines their relationship. The one they always want to dance to at weddings. For my parents, it's this terrible Muggle song called _2 Become 1_ that was popular when they got together. Whenever Mum hears it, she grabs Dad and makes him dance with her and he rolls his eyes while she sings. It's an awful, sort of racy song. And Mum is a horrific singer."

He chuckled at the thought, but wasn't sure what her relatives' favorite songs had to do with the moment. "Okay then, what of it?"

"Well, I was just thinking how _we_ don't have a song."

Scorpius thought for a moment. It was true- they were never much for listening to music together, so it never even crossed his mind that they should have a song. But maybe... "I think I have an idea," he said, and pulled her out of the bench towards the Owlery, where he could get some parchment and a quill.

_Rose Jane Weasley,  
O__ur song is..._

* * *

_The scratching of quills filling parchment, owls tapping on your window_

The summer after first year, Scorpius had never been so glad his parents had bought him his own owl for Hogwarts. They never checked the mail before he sent it, never noticed that nearly every envelope was addressed to Rose Weasley. At twelve, every scratch of quill on parchment was wonderful because he knew Rose would be reading it soon. Something about her made him want to improve his handwriting. And nothing was better than hearing Mercury tap impatiently on the bedroom window, a note in Rose's own messy scrawl attached to his leg. He kept every letter she wrote.

* * *

_When we walk the lake and it's late at night and we sit staring up at starlight_

They weren't dating yet. Scorpius was certain it was just a yet: one day they would be together; but at the moment they were fourth years, it was spring, and he asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. No matter that it was nearly midnight. Scorpius hid his surprise when she agreed, and managed to not even try to hold her hand as they walked around the lake to their special spot on the far side where they could lay down and look at the stars. They talked for hours and he didn't say "I love you."

* * *

_When you hold my hand_

It was all he wanted for a long time, but nothing could've surprised him more when they were sixth years on the first trip to Hogsmeade of the year when she walked close and let their arms brush, giving him shivers. A minute later, they were holding hands. Scorpius could hear in her silence how she didn't want to talk about it, draw attention to their intertwined fingers, but he could hear the whispers from their classmates anyway. He didn't care; his brain was occupied trying to decide what to say in a few minutes when he asked her out.

* * *

_The first date when it all went better than I could plan_

He thought it was cheesy, picking her up at Ravenclaw Tower in dress robes, red roses in hand, but she smiled and blushed as if it wasn't her best friend who stood somewhat awkwardly in front of her. She took the flowers and grinned, sending them into a vase on the hearth. Scorpius was sure Rose had never looked so beautiful, and when he took her out to Madam Puddifoot's, every eye was on them. Everything was perfect until she took his hand and pulled him into an alley where she snogged him senseless. Then it was better than perfection.

* * *

_And when I returned back to Slytherin, already asking when I could see you again._

It was after curfew when Scorpius returned from Ravenclaw Tower after his first date with Rose. He went to his dormitory, where everyone was thankfully already asleep, and pulled the curtains around his four-poster bed. Scorpius was sure he'd been falling for Rose for years, but he knew even then that in the future, when someone would ask him when he fell in love with Rose Weasley, he would be able to trace it to the minute she first kissed him. But for now, he just couldn't wait to see his girlfriend again, and even breakfast seemed too far away.

* * *

_Our song is the scratching of quills  
__Filling parchment, owls tapping on your window  
__When we walk the lake and it's late at night  
__And we sit staring up at starlight.  
__Our song's when you hold my hand  
T__he first date when it all went better than I could plan.  
__And when I returned back to Slytherin,  
__Already asking when I could see you again._

Rose was grinning as she read it, slowly, and Scorpius imagined her thinking back over their past, over what moments he used to define their song. She finished and took his hand. "It's perfect," she said, and kissed him as the snow continued to fall around them. As she pulled away and placed her head on his chest, she whispered, "I can't wait to hear it again."


	3. Lullaby NevilleHannah

**A/N: Loosely inspired by "Lullaby" by Nickelback. I'm not Nickelback, or J.K. Rowling. The characters are hers. The lullaby at the end is Brahms' Lullaby and is in the public domain (which still means I didn't write it, as I wasn't around to write it). Written for the "I Wish I Had Children Because..." challenge, the Song Fic Boot Camp, and the 50 Lyrics Competition.**

**Word Count: **1,672

**Rating: **T

**Warnings: **Depressing. Non-explicit mentions of marital sex.

Wide awake, Hannah Abbott Longbottom rolled out of bed and walked onto the balcony adjoining their bedroom. She could see out over Muggle London and even in the middle of the night, the street seemed busy. Buses passed; the occasional group of people walked down the street, some acting more tipsy than others. There was never any quiet in the Muggle world; something always had to be happening. It was so different from the aching stillness inside her heart, the pain, slowly dulling, that still kept her awake at night. She looked up to the clear night sky, but the overwhelming dusting of stars visible over Hogwarts were just dots scattered about here and there. Streaks of light moved quickly across the sky. Airplanes, she reminded herself. They're just airplanes. Spotting one, hoping for a shooting star, then seeing the flashing red lights - it was far too much like what she'd been through. And this was the third time.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, arms resting on the railing, watching the outside world. It fascinated her to watch the headlights streak as they drove past, to hear the drunken slurs of late-night lonely Muggles, the happy chatter of midnight dates. Looking out at them, she wondered about their magicless lives, about the kinds of problems they had, what led that man or woman to drink, to explore London so late. Hannah wondered if any of the women had known the same pain she did, pain that marked her not as magical, but simply human.

A tap on her shoulder and she jumped, scared out of what was neither daydream nor nightmare. "Oh, Neville, it's you. I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't. I woke up to use the toilet and you weren't in bed, so I came out for you." He wrapped his arms around her and placed a kiss on her forehead. "I worry about you, you know. It's been three months."

Hannah shook her head. It may have been three months for her husband, but she relived it every night. She dreamt of blood, woke up sobbing, screamed into her pillow, collapsed exhausted but unable to sleep, torn between her haunting reality and her world of nightmares. Every nightmare felt like the real thing and it would always start in the happy moment, early autumn.

Neville had been back teaching at Hogwarts for just over a month, and Hannah was settling into her routine as newly appointed head of the Leaky Cauldron. She had suspicions in August, but waited until the end of the month to tell Neville; after all, it had already failed twice. His face lit up with excitement when she told him she was expecting and in early October her belly was slowly beginning to round. People would glance at her figure a little longer than necessary and she tried to hide her proud smile. The night of her nightmare, she left the Leaky Cauldron in the hands of another bartender. "Stomach cramps," she said apologetically. "A potion and some rest and I should be fine."

But the pain increased, spread through her abdomen unbearably and though her potion bottle lay empty and forgotten beside the toilet where she sat, it was unrelenting. She cast a Silencing charm and screamed: a kind of agony, then an acknowledgement that the agony was familiar. Twelve weeks. She hadn't made it to twelve weeks before, but as she went to stand up, the blood left her no doubt. She sent an owl to her husband, a note with only three words: "Come home, please."

"I'm broken," she said when he arrived that night. "There's something wrong with me." She curled into his side, his arms as awkward around her now as they were at the beginning of their relationship, but he was trying.

"No, shh Hannah. It'll be okay. We can try again."

"That's what you said last time. And the time before that." Her voice was full of defeat. "You don't get it, okay? It's not your body that's broken! You haven't watched your hopes of being a parent get literally flushed down the toilet. If you want to be a father, all you have to do is leave me. But I could never be a mother, whether with you or someone else. My body won't let me."

He lifted her face, gently wiped her tears, even as new drops cascaded over his thumb. He kissed her forehead. "You say that like it would be easy to leave you - like it would be something I would consider. Of course I would love to be the father of your children. But you mean much more to me than being a dad does."

From then on, he Apparated into Hogsmeade each morning, spending the night with her. But it wasn't much help. "Please let me take you back into the light," he'd whisper into her ear, close enough to give her gooseflesh. "I miss you, Hannah." Then some nights she would shrug his arms away from her and curl up on the edge of the bed and ignore him, falling into the darkness of her depression. Other nights she would collapse further into his embrace and let herself cry.

In the present, on the balcony in the cool winter air, Hannah said, "Three months isn't long enough. I should be six months along now. Everyone should know that I'm pregnant. We should be picking out baby names, arguing over whether a girl would be Alice or Emma, a boy Frank or John." She turned around to look into her husband's eyes. "Susan came into the bar last night, exhausted after work. She was telling me how old she feels, now that most of the babies she delivers are children of people who weren't even there our seventh year. Neville... there are people having children who were just children themselves during the Battle of Hogwarts. They weren't in school when the Carrows were there. These people- these _parents_- they barely remember Voldemort's rise to power. Evie Thompson was older than they are. Neville, we're old."

"Come inside, Hannah, it's freezing," was all he said in response, and even that took him a few moments to compose. She complied, taking his hand. He closed the door and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. She pulled her lips away, looking down but still leaning into him. "Please, honey. I just want to make you feel better."

"It just reminds me that we- that I- I just can't."

"Please," he said again. "I miss you."

"Soon," she said.

"Tonight?"

A deep breath. "I think so."

They lay down together, and she curled into his shoulder, trying to focus on breathing. "Do you want to talk about it first?"

"Not really. What am I supposed to say? That I've been depressed? That I hate visiting all our old friends because I'm inevitably around their toddlers, and Hermione or Ginny or Susan or someone is constantly asking us when we'll have kids or why we don't have any yet? I'm just - I'm just done." A deep sigh, a pause. "I thought that seventh year at Hogwarts would be the hardest thing we'd ever have to go through," she added, tracing a scar along Neville's arm, then reaching to touch one of her own. "But scars like this one are a lot easier to deal with than the ones nobody sees."

"Yeah, that's definitely true. I spent the first seventeen years of my life thinking I was worthless, having Gran constantly compare me to the man my father was. I thought I was a Squib for years, since everyone else seemed to think I was, and I was thrilled to even have a place at Hogwarts. I know it's nothing at all like what you're going through, but it's a scar I have that's hard to explain. I'm not proud of it like I am the ones from the Carrows, from the battles I've fought in. I'm here for you, Hannah. We're on the same team here and you're not alone."

She rolled over to face him, kissed a scar on his cheek. He ran a hand through her hair and turned her head so he could kiss her lips and their kisses grew deeper. Her nightgown was off when he suddenly stopped and reached for his wand. "Is everything okay?"

He smiled down at her and pointed his wand at the radio. Relaxing piano music began to play in the background. "More than okay. Let's give this one more try. To a lullaby, if that's okay? To help us relax."

Hannah's answer came only in the way she closed her eyes and pulled him closer to kiss his neck. The music surrounded them as they melted together and Hannah began to forget the pain. This sort of closeness with her husband - it had been more than a month. Limbs still entwined as the lullaby ended, Hannah fell back to sleep and awoke in the morning without having a single bad dream. Neville's hair was disheveled as he slept beside her, shirtless. She ran a hand along his cheek and whispered in his ear, "Thank you."

Nine months later, she sat in the rocking chair in the spare bedroom, empty handed and barely holding on to her sanity. A baby blanket on the wall, embroidered to say "Alice"; a memory of her trip to St. Mungo's three months previously where she gave birth to a daughter who lived for fifteen minutes. A few days later: the funeral, the tiny coffin in the tiny grave, a date with no dashes. Alone, she lowered the coffin into its place, and sang to her daughter the best she could through her tears.

_Lullaby and goodnight  
__You are your mother's delight  
__Shining angels beside  
__My darling abide.  
__Soft and warm is your bed  
__Close your eyes, rest your head  
__Soft and warm is your bed  
__Close your eyes, rest your head._


	4. Iris MollyArthur

**A/N: For the 50 lyrics competition (prompt: Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls), the song fic boot camp (prompt: love) and the Colors Competition (prompt: red). I don't own the song, and I am not JK Rowling. The characters belong to her.**

**Word Count: **1316

**Rating: **K+

**Warnings: **None.

_Closest to Heaven_

Molly Prewett opened the great castle doors to escape to the grounds. The sun had set long ago, but it was only just after dinnertime. She pulled her shawl close around her, shivering in the December cold. Frozen blades of grass crunched beneath her boots and the remains of last week's snowfall had melted away. The route around the ice of the Black Lake was familiar, but under a new moon, Molly felt the need to light her wand. She wasn't worried about getting caught; after all, curfew was still hours away and the temperature was sure to ward off anyone unwelcome. The darkness, the chill, a spot on the far side of the lake, they were all safeguards to make sure the two of them would be alone.

Unsurprisingly, Arthur was already there, a small blue fire set in the middle of their favorite location. She smiled as she saw him, his face lit unevenly by the flickering flame. Nervously, she tucked her feet in underneath her. "Hi, Arthur," she said, without meeting his eyes.

"Hi Molly. Thanks for meeting me. You must be freezing."

"A little bit," she conceded, eyes focused only on the flame between them. "And a bit confused about why we'd come out to the lake in December. At night."

"I have a few reasons really. To begin with, I wanted to spend some time alone with you."

"Why not at Hogsmeade, or in the Common Room at night or something, then?"

"We wouldn't really be alone in Hogsmeade, would we? There are people everywhere on Hogsmeade days. And who knows who would come down to the Common Room? Here, I know it's just us."

Molly shifted uncomfortably across from him. Arthur was great, and she was really enjoying getting to know him, but she wasn't sure exactly what his reasons were for wanting to be completely alone, and if he was like boys that Gideon and Fabian had warned her about, then it was a bad idea, joining him. But despite all the warnings she'd received over the years from well-intentioned brothers who saw the way their friends looked at her, she didn't think Arthur was like that. Clumsy, bumbling Arthur, whose favorite class was Muggle Studies- he wouldn't take advantage of her. "Yeah, I suppose it is just us. But it means in awkward silences we'll have no silly people to comment on. What am I going to say when we run out of things to talk about? 'The lake looks really frozen tonight?'"

"You could say whatever you'd like. I just wanted to really get to know you better. I mean, since we're boyfriend and girlfriend now, I want to know what you're really like. I want you to know who I am."

She smiled and laughed at him. Their conversation came naturally and she realized Arthur wasn't kidding at all. He was telling her everything- or at least what felt like everything. She found out about the Weasley family history, how they once were affluent and lost it all, how they were all boys with red hair and he wasn't sure how that tradition would ever be broken. Molly tensed at hearing that. She was far too young to think about marriages and families, and she knew that, but Molly Prewett really wanted to have a daughter one day.

Soon the tables turned and Arthur began asking her questions about her own life, the Prewett family. Before she knew it, he had moved around the fire to sit beside her and clasped her hand in his own. "You're freezing. I really should get you inside soon. But there's just one more thing." He looked at the wristwatch he was wearing. "It should be about another half an hour. Can you wait that long?"

"I suppose so," she replied, but really there was nothing more that she wanted than to see what Arthur had planned for her. Their perfect evening would be over sooner or later anyway; why would she make the night end before it had to? They had been dating for two months, now, but Arthur had never tried to do more with her than gently hold her hand, or put an arm around her slim body as they walked between classes. But the moment was perfect and so Molly moved closer into Arthur's side, then tilted her chin up to look at his face. Tentatively, since she'd never done anything like it before, she pressed her lips to his.

They were cold, nearly frozen, but he responded to her and her lips and her whole face began to warm up. The kiss was awkward; she wasn't sure their teeth were supposed to crash into each other the way theirs did, but it was still the most wonderful thing she could imagine. All she could taste was that moment, and all that she breathed in was his life.

"Everything feels like the movies," Arthur said as they pulled away.

"Like what?" Molly asked, confused.

"Oh, sorry. I forget not everyone studies them. Muggles record each other like our photographs, but use them to tell stories. They're usually, well-" Even in the blackness of night she could see the reddish tint of his cheeks. "Well they're usually love stories. It seems like we're in one of those movies tonight."

Before she had a chance to respond, he glanced at the sky, and shouted excitedly, "Look, Molly! Look!"

At the edge of the horizon, it was like a red dawn was coming. The red lights were rising, moving slowly, dancing around each other. Pink and green lights joined them, moved across the sky, and they sprawled out in the grass, shawls beneath them, heating spells cast, laying in silence. Molly hardly realized it until what must've been hours later, but she was softly crying. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Finally, in a whisper, afraid that mere words would interrupt this magic, she whispered, "What is it?"

"Aurora borealis," he replied. "The northern lights. It takes special conditions for them to come out- and tonight was perfect for them."

"They're amazing." She nuzzled her head into his shoulder, still looking up at the changing sky above them.

They were content for a while longer, but then Arthur began to get up, sitting beside her again. "Molly?" he said, his voice tentative.

"Yes, Arthur?"

He conjured a bouquet of a dozen red roses and handed them to her. "I just want you to know- well, there are so many things in life that are broken, things that don't last. These roses will wilt, the lights will go away, but I think there are some things that are permanent. And, well, the fleeting things are wonderful, but it's the permanent things that we should live for. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love you. Being close to you, it's the closest to heaven and stars and northern lights that I'll ever be."

"I love you too," Molly responded, and meant it. "I don't want to go home right now."

"Me either, but we probably should. I'm sure the Fat Lady will be upset enough that we're coming in this late."

As it turned out, she refused altogether to let them in, and they stayed up in the hallway whispering to each other. But even on perfect nights, there are yawns and watery eyes and other gentle signs that sleep gives as an invitation. So as Molly stretched out on her cloak in the hallway by the Fat Lady's portrait, she thought of roses and love and waltzing lights and the last thing she saw once her eyes were closed was a peaceful, dancing red.


	5. If I Die Young NevilleHannah

**A/N: The characters belong to JK Rowling. This story is a sort of continuation to/different perspective on the events in Lullaby (chapter 3 of this one-shot collection). It was written for the Song Fic Boot Camp (prompt: mother) and the 50 Lyrics Competition (prompt: If I Die Young by The Band Perry). I don't own the song any more than I own the characters.**

**Word Count:** 1302

**Rating:** T

**Warnings:** Depressing. Character death.

_Just Enough Time_

Raindrops beat down hard on London's rooftops and kept Hannah Longbottom inside, dispirited, six months pregnant. Though it was still afternoon on the gray, dismal day, The Leaky Cauldron was full of witches and wizards who wanted to stay inside as well. It was such a strange mix of people. Many were just stopping in for a Butterbeer before continuing on to Diagon Alley for shopping, but she had some sad regulars who ordered their first Firewhisky just after noon and sat by themselves in dark corners, finishing one pint and Summoning another. They always stayed too long, but she was used to them. During her training, Tom had been sure to point out the regulars, tell their stories, make sure Hannah would go on to let them be. "They've given up on living," he had told her. "Yeh can tell when they come in, heads wrapped up in the fog of the past, that they have no intention of facing the present. Just let 'em be, Longbottom. It's our steadiest form of income. Yeh get used to 'em, though. Yeh'll see."

He had been right. She soon got used to their monotonous clothes, their breaths that smelled of Firewhisky and hinted that they couldn't remember the last time their teeth had been properly brushed. When they arrived, she simply called them out by name, drink ready to go, and moved on to serving her guests who were more interested in living.

With nearly all the tables full, she was glad she had recently hired on some extra help. A few waiters and waitresses, most more than ten years her junior, wandered around, taking food orders and cleaning up the drinks, while Hannah preferred to be behind the counter.

It was about three o'clock when the pain hit her, but she tried to shrug it off. Susan Macmillan had warned her about false contractions, and though it was still a bit early for them, it wasn't unheard of. My body's just practicing, she told herself. It needs to prepare for the real thing. Soon, however, she couldn't ignore the sharp pains any longer. "Jessica?" she called out to the nearest waitress, and her best bet for keeping the place running in her absence. "Come here for a second?"

"Sure thing, Mrs. Longbottom." She finished clearing the table, put the dishes away, and joined Hannah behind the counter. "What do you need?"

"I'm just not feeling well; I'm having contractions and I'm afraid something may be wrong with the baby. Will you Floo Neville and have him meet me at St. Mungo's?"

"Of course! Do you need someone to take you? I know it's not too far, but with the rain, I don't think you should be walking alone, and Apparating isn't safe."

"That is probably a good idea. Send a Floo St. Mungo's, too, and see if Susan can be spared enough to Apparate over and walk me back."

Soon, her old friend was at her side, an over-large umbrella covering them both as they headed down the London streets toward the abandoned shop front that marked the entrance to the Wizarding hospital. Hannah tried her best to hide how much pain she was feeling, but as a particularly bad contraction hit her, she had to stop, double over, and clutch her stomach.

"It hurts that bad, Hannah?" She nodded at her friend, not able to say much. "Something is almost certainly wrong then. I know it hurts, but we have to hurry."

They arrived within five minutes and Susan took her up to the Maternity Ward, where she had worked since shortly after graduating Hogwarts. She guided her old friend into a room where she was alone, and made sure she was monitored. Neville joined her soon after, holding her hand as she moaned.

At about seven o'clock that evening, Susan joined her in the room again. "Hannah, Neville, I'm so sorry, but I've been talking it over and I think it's best not to delay it any longer. Your body is trying to deliver and I think we should let it. So the next time you feel a contraction, go ahead and push."

By seven-thirty, Susan held a tiny, perfect baby girl in her hands. But she wasn't crying. Her face was turning blue as she gasped for air. "Susan? Is she okay?"

Her friend swallowed. "Her lungs aren't fully developed. There's - there's not much I can do. Would you like to hold her before-" She didn't finish her sentence, and Hannah nodded.

"Alice Hope," she said to Neville, not quite a question. "I think that should be her name."

"Okay," he said, looking down at the tiny baby now cradled in her arms. Alice was the length of her wand - thirteen inches - and barely weighed a pound. Neville reached down and held out a finger to her hand. Surprisingly, she grasped his finger in her tiny fist, not even able to reach all the way around it. Hannah stroked her soft hair, peered at her lovely blue eyes, struggled, like her tiny daughter, to breathe properly. Her tears landed on the soft down that covered Alice's stomach. Then, with one last struggle, Alice stopped breathing. Hannah's journey of motherhood had lasted for fifteen minutes.

They held the funeral a week later. Hannah didn't want many people there. She asked Susan and Ernie to come, and her father had insisted on attending as well. Alice's coffin was the size of a shoebox, lined in the finest satin fabric she could find, a bed of roses beneath her tiny body. She wore a white Christening gown that Molly Weasley had made for her, though she had had to use magic to shrink it down to fit Alice's tiny body. Neville wore his best black Muggle suit, and Hannah wore a somber black dress, fastening pearls around her neck in her daughter's honor.

The minister didn't say much. "Life isn't always what you think it ought to be. This is one of those tragic times, a mother having to bury her baby before a single gray hair has formed on her head. It's the sharp knife of such a short life. But every life happens for a reason, and this girl had just enough time. She was so special that she did everything she needed to in mere minutes, and now she rests with our good Lord in heaven with the angels." For a moment, Hannah was furious with herself for hiring a Muggle minister. Then she decided it was nice to think of her daughter among the angels, if there were any.

The funeral was longer than her life had been.

When the minister was done speaking, she asked her family if they would let her bury her daughter alone. Neville began to protest, but saw the plea in her eyes and acquiesced, standing just outside the cemetery gate with the rest of the attendants. She lay her daughter down in the hole, sang to her a lullaby about angels being with her now because maybe, maybe the Muggle minister was right about something. As she finished the verse of the lullaby, the rain which hadn't ended since the day she went into St. Mungo's let up for just a moment; the sun broke through, and right above her there was a rainbow. Was it some sort of sign? Hannah wasn't sure if it was supposed to be, but it made her feel like one day she would be okay again.

Her daughter's coffin now situated in the grave, she turned to the gate and summoned her husband. Together they threw the first pieces of dirt over her coffin. "We'll get through this," Neville whispered against her temple. And in that moment, underneath a rainbow, she believed him.


	6. Just a Kiss RonHermione

**A/N: I'm not JKR; the characters belong to her. I used 'Just a Kiss' by Lady Antebellum as inspiration, and I don't own that, either. I entered this in the Song Fic Boot Camp for that song.**

**Written for Kitty132383's birthday (an early present!) with the prompt "With great power comes great need to sleep" and written for WeasleySeeker's half birthday and request that I write fluff after my two depressing one-shots. So happy birthday to Kitty, and happy fluff-reading to Lucy!**

**Word Count: **1124

**Rating: **K-plus

**Warnings:** None

Hermione couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes a different nightmare came to her - the faces she loved who had died in battle; the very real possibility that she would never see her parents again; the pain of Bellatrix's wand tattooing her skin with profanity; the words the necklace Horcrux used to whisper to her as she sat up alone to guard the tent. It made her scared to fall asleep. Ginny lay soundlessly in the twin bed opposite her own. Moonlight coming through the window just barely illuminated the room enough for Hermione to grab her dressing gown and make her way out of the bedroom and up the stairs. Naturally, Harry and Ron were sharing a room, but maybe, if she was lucky, she would only wake the one she wanted to be around more than anything.

She opened the door to his room and quietly sat down on the corner of his bed. She squeezed his hand and his eyes darted open, and he looked around nervously. "'Mione?"

"Shh, Ron. I don't want to wake Harry."

"Whadderya doin' here?"

"I couldn't sleep. Do you think you could take a walk with me?"

"'Kay. Gimme a minute," he responded, sitting up and fumbling for his wand.

"Okay. I'll just wait outside."

He soon joined her, wearing a dressing gown and yawning theatrically. "It's two in the morning, you know."

"Consider it a compliment," Hermione said, tentatively reaching out for his hand. "I couldn't sleep and I woke you. Not Ginny, not Harry, you."

"Well, yeah," Ron said. "But after the way you dropped highly dangerous basilisk fangs to snog me, I sort of expected something to happen sooner. It's nearly June, mate."

"And you haven't approached me, either! Maybe I was hoping you would be daring, chivalrous, you know, a typical Gryffindor male, and pursue _me!_" Hermione dropped his hand, trying to figure out what it was about Ron Weasley that she liked so much. She stormed away from him, walking fast enough that it would be hard for him to catch up, but making sure he could still see her and follow. Hermione didn't stop until the Burrow was barely a dot on the distance, then sat down along the bank of the stream that constituted the back edge of their property.

A few minutes later, Ron came half-running to her side. "Bloody hell, Hermione! I thought you were going to make me chase you to London or something."

"I thought about it," she said, still looking ahead at the way the moonlight played against the mild current of the stream. "But this was far enough. At least I got you to pursue me." She smiled knowingly.

"Er, yeah. Right. I suppose I did!" With each sentence, Ron's face filled with a bit more understanding of what she meant, and he boldly reached toward her and took her hand in his. "So, um, Hermione? Will you please be my girlfriend?"

"Why?"

"You're impossible, you know that? One minute you're begging me to pursue you, and then once I do you just ask me why?"

Hermione sighed. "It's perfectly logical, Ron. I begged you to pursue me, and you did. How do I know then that you're not just doing it to appease me? How do I know you mean it?"

Carefully, Ron turned her face so she was looking at him and pulled a strand of her bushy hair behind her ear. "Because you're beautiful, and intelligent, and so much better than me. I know I don't deserve you and I really shouldn't deserve a chance with you. But every night when I was gone, you were the last thing I thought about when I went to sleep and the name I whispered, half-asleep, whenever Bill would come wake me in the morning. I kept living, even though I hated myself, because I knew I needed you. I wanted to make sure we would be okay. I knew I couldn't live without you."

As he spoke, his eyes were tearing up. Hermione pulled herself even closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. For the first time since their moment of passion during the battle, she tentatively pressed her lips to his. It was different - calm and intentional instead of impulsive and intense - but in some ways it was even more perfect than the last. "Okay, Ron. I'll be your girlfriend."

They moved away from the stream and lay down side by side in the soft grass, holding hands and talking. "Hermione, why did you come get me anyway?"

"I was having nightmares. I've had them almost every night since we've gotten here, and I couldn't fall asleep. The images kept flashing from one to another and it was all I could take. I needed - I needed to be with you." Ron reached for her forearm, for the place where she would always be tattooed with a terrible word. He kissed it through the long sleeves of her dressing gown and she smiled and shivered some.

They continued to talk as the moon rose higher and higher over their heads. Ron found himself telling her things he hadn't told Harry, things he hadn't told Bill or any of his brothers. It was hard for him to hold back his thoughts this late at night with the woman he loved resting in his arms. He was half tempted to ask her to marry him that night. But he couldn't do it- he couldn't rush something that felt so right. They could take it slow and still get there one day. He yawned. "Maybe we should go to bed. It's late."

Hermione giggled against him. "Actually, it's early. But perhaps you're right. Aren't we supposed to be giving some kind of interview in the afternoon? I guess we're nearly celebrities now. And you know what they say: with great power-"

"Comes great need to sleep?" Ron guessed.

"Something like that. Let's go."

Walking back to the Burrow, Ron's arm protectively around her waist, her head on his shoulder. At the door to Ginny's room, they paused. He did not want to say goodnight to her, to end what had been his most perfect night in months. Leaning down to her, he pressed his lips to hers lightly, just brushing against them, and it set off a fire inside of him. But despite what he was feeling, he pulled away from her. She looked up at him, sad, expectant, but he said, "No- I don't want to mess this thing up. So tonight, I think a kiss goodnight is all we need." She nodded, leaned her forehead against his chin, and opened the door to her room.


	7. Be Your Everything RhysRowena

**A/N: Written for the 50 Lyrics Competition with the prompt "Be Your Everything," by Boys Like Girls; the Song Fic Boot Camp with the prompt "Together forever"; and the Original Character Boot Camp with the prompt "Shiver." I'm not JK Rowling, and the world is hers. The characters are my own. I don't own 'Be Your Everything,' but you should listen to it before/during reading because it's awesome. Random thought: it's harder to write a decent song fic to really amazing songs...**

**This takes place with my characters from "All That Once Was Lost," but it is in a different universe than that story is. It still takes place in 3003 or 3004 though.**

**Word Count: **879

**Rating: **K-plus

**Warnings: **None.

Rhys Finnegan knew the way that stories like theirs were supposed to go. Best friends since the train ride to Hogwarts, they were supposed to date other people, have an awkward encounter that led them to date each other briefly, then grow apart with the years. They were supposed to marry other people and be godparents to each other's children, maybe make their spouses jealous with the memories they had from school together. Yes, Rhys Finnegan knew exactly how their story was supposed to go. But he was determined to rewrite the ending.

"Rowena, will you come back?! I promise you it's not going to bite!" He swore under his breath when one of the roots got between his glove and the end of his shirt and stung him. But he hadn't said anything at all about the plant's affinity for stinging.

"That's what you said last time," she called out to him from the grass outside the greenhouse. "I think I'll just wait here. It's not like it's _my _homework."

"Fine. But you better not be expecting me to stand there patiently while you do your homework for Transfiguration."

"I don't! I'm working on it now!" She held up a perfectly formed brick. "This was a mouse a minute ago. Hope you didn't need it."

"Rowena Potter, you better be joking. You know I need that mouse!"

"Oh, right. Sorry about that." She flicked her wand and let the mouse run free. "But I'm not catching it for you."

Rhys hastily put the stinging plant into its new pot and ran out to the field. Instead of chasing the field mouse, though, he rushed to Rowena and tackled her into the grass. He tickled her incessantly underneath her ribcage and she retaliated, which wasn't at all fair because he was at least as ticklish as she was. He was half on top of her, and her shirt was unbuttoned one too far to meet the regulation, but Rhys thought it was an inopportune time to bring that fact up. He rolled beside her and began to sit up. A four-letter word was running through his head, but he didn't have the guts to say it. How difficult would it be, really? _Rowena, I love you_. He'd thought it around her more times in the last few years than he'd care to admit, but looking into her green eyes and actually _speaking _them? The thought was too much to handle.

They stayed where they were, the field mouse forgotten, as the hours drew on and storm clouds began to roll in. Out of the blue, he said, "Do you ever picture yourself with anyone?"

"What do you mean, like a marriage or something?"

"Well, yeah. Or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever."

"I guess, sometimes. Why? Do you picture yourself with anyone?"

"Yeah. All the time."

She rolled onto her stomach and propped her head up on her elbows. "Who?" There was a glimmer in her eye.

"Guess."

"Serah Macmillan."

"Very funny, Ro. You know me better than that."

"Hmm... wait. You don't picture yourself with _me_ do you?"

"Well, yeah. I do. I mean, you're perfect for me. For a long time now I've seen you as more than a friend."

She was silent. He couldn't look at her. In spending so much time looking at the ground, neither of them noticed how close the storm clouds were until the rain started coming down and lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder was there in seconds. Rhys pulled off his jacket and wrapped it automatically around Rowena. "Come on, let's get inside!"

But she made no attempt to move anywhere. "I like storms. As long as there's at least a little bit of shelter."

"I can be that for you, Ro. I'll be your shelter if you need it. I can be your storm, too, if you'd like. If you wanted a fling, I think I could do that, or if you wanted someone to be with you forever. Rowena, I would be anything for you."

"You're rambling again, Rhys," she said, smiling, and to his surprise, she came close as the rain poured and placed her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He was finally catching up to her in height, but still her neck was bent slightly down in order to rest on him, and just barely against his neck he felt her whisper, "I love you." It sent shivers down his spine.

"I love you, too," he whispered back at her and she giggled.

"You're making me shiver."

"Good. But I can keep you warm, too," he said, and awkwardly leaned up to brush his lips against hers. She kissed him back and when they pulled away, he took her hand to walk back to the castle, their clothes heavy and disfigured from being saturated with rain.

As they warmed by the fire that evening, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, he asked her, "Do you think we have a chance, then? That maybe we could be together forever? I mean, I know it sounds childish, but we always said we'd stick together, right?"

"If I had to bet on anyone lasting forever, it would be us."


	8. Waterfall DracoPansy

**A/N: Written for the "Let's End This The Way We Started It Competition," the 50 Lyrics Competition (song: Waterfall by ELO), the Song Fic Boot Camp (prompt: jump), and the One Word Challenge. I am not JKR and the characters belong to her. I am not a member of ELO and the song belongs to them.**

**This takes place in a slightly AU world that is basically just EWE (Epilogue? What Epilogue?).**

**Word Count: **2,018

**Rating:** T

**Warnings:** Depressing. Character death. Non-explicit mentions of sex.

_Pursuits of Happiness_

Happiness is an elusive thing. It seems everyone spends their life chasing it, but where one person looks and finds plenty, another person comes up dry. Some people seem to have happiness chasing them; it doesn't matter where they turn, happiness seems to find them. I am not one of those people.

When I was younger, my father always told me there were more important things than happiness: family, power, prestige, good favor of those more powerful than you: these were the things he told me to pursue. So I did. And I'll be damned if I say I didn't try.

There was a checklist, all but written on parchment, for what I was supposed to do with my life. Excel at Hogwarts. Mingle with Pure-blood girls since I would be marrying one of them. Join my father in the cause. Grow up, get married, produce an heir. Eventually, I knew, I was expected to _become_ my father. Honoring him - that was everything to me. The Malfoy name _was_ power and prestige, and doing what he asked brought me into good favor in his eyes and he is family and he is more powerful than I am and I was doing everything right.

My father always told me I would know who was pure because they would be regal and elegant, beautiful and poised. I looked around at the other first years as we got ready to be Sorted. I knew I'd be Slytherin, so I was worried about more important things. A pretty, poised girl I had my eye on got Sorted into Hufflepuff. That would never do. I knew when my family said Pure-blood they actually meant Slytherin. Based on everything my father had told me, I couldn't be more surprised when a pug-faced, ugly girl with neither poise nor manners came sauntering over to join my House.

Authoritatively, she told me her name was Pansy Parkinson as she sat down beside me and stuck out her hand. I ignored it. I responded with my last name first, because I had learned a long time beforehand that my surname would get me further in life than anything else would. Parkinson grabbed my hand and shook it anyway.

Soon it became hard to ignore that Parkinson was considered a leader among the Slytherin girls. She was not the things Father told me to look for in a Pure-blood; she possessed none of the elegance and grace and longsuffering that my mother did. But her blood was pure and she was Slytherin to the core. I began to pursue her.

When fourth year came and the Yule Ball was announced, I knew I would be expected to take her. By then, we were king and queen of Slytherin - if not the whole castle. She very nearly looked pretty that evening, and her usual unmerited attitude of loftiness had shifted and dancing with her was almost pleasant. We became a couple.

As of now, it's been nearly ten years since we started dating, and more than six since she ended it. I find myself wandering the highlands of Scotland. It's been days, now, since I escaped and Apparated here. It's pouring. I hardly notice anymore, although I didn't bother casting any sort of spell to keep myself warm and dry. Keeping myself in perpetual misery is more comfortable than the search for happiness. At least I know I can succeed at the former.

During seventh year, I had been branded a coward by the same man who, a year previously, branded me with the Dark Mark. I still have the tattoo, of course. I don't know about anyone else, but most of the time, I feel it burning, like it used to when the Dark Lord would call to us. It makes me wonder if he's calling me still, asking me again where my loyalty lies, and beckoning me to join him in a grave.

It was also during my seventh year that I fell in love with Astoria Greengrass. I was still dating Pansy, still letting her lounge against my lap in the Common Room, still holding her hand, still sometimes waking up with her beside me in my bed. But if I ever loved Pansy at all, it had faded long before Daphne's little sister brought herself to my attention. I convinced myself I would be waking up beside Pansy for the rest of my life after Hogwarts, but then, finally, there was hope in front of me. A Pure-blood, a respectable family, and by the time she was fifteen, Astoria had all of the poise and elegance my father had asked me to look for.

I was elated. It was looking like it might be possible for me to have everything - certainly my family had lost some of its prestige, but if I could only convince Astoria to marry me, I would honor my family and hers, and I was certain that calling her my wife would bring me the elusive happiness I wasn't supposed to search for, but wanted more than anything.

Within a month of truly noticing her, I had sent an owl to my father to ask him for any information he had on the Greengrass family and whether they were a suitable bloodline to connect to. He sent back a note that sounded as elated as someone with his restraint could be, saying he was pleased that Daphne and I were considering marriage. It was with some embarrassment that I had to respond that it was actually her sister, only a fifth year, who had caught my attention. I made sure to point out that Daphne and Blaise seemed perfectly happy together, although I knew that looks could be deceiving. As far as I was aware, Pansy and I seemed perfectly happy together, too. We were Slytherins; keeping up appearances was part of the game.

Until, of course, everyone had gone to bed, and Pansy would stay up and yell at me for not being attentive enough, for not giving her the respect she was certain she deserved, and how in the world could I stare at that young, ugly Greengrass girl when she was standing _right there_?! She slapped me once or twice for it. I caught her kissing Blaise Zabini. She pouted and cried and convinced me that if only I had been there for her, the thought would never have crossed her mind.

I don't think Pansy ever found out that I spent the last year of our relationship trying to negotiate an engagement to someone else. In the end, after the battle, she broke up with me. It was months after she left, months of spending all my time alone at Malfoy Manor, before I finally admitted that I missed her. Granted, I admitted to missing Pansy right around the time I found out that Astoria's marriage had already been decided. She had been engaged to a wealthy Frenchman from the time she was twelve. There was nothing left to be said in the matter. Mr. Greengrass offered Daphne's hand to me instead, but I couldn't imagine Astoria as my sister-in-law and not my wife. To be around her family all the time and not be hers was more than I could handle. I turned down the offer.

For whatever reason, they somehow thought it was fit to invite me to her wedding. I was twenty, unmarried, no prospects. She was eighteen and about to become Madame Prevot. Her husband-to-be was thirty-five. In the years leading up to her marriage, we had seen more of each other than was prudent. I had kissed her once, at a Pure-blood social gathering, after I pulled her down an empty hallway and admitted to being a little drunk. She kissed me back. I whispered that I loved her as I unzipped her dress in some unused bedroom in the depths of the Zabini mansion. She didn't answer me, but twenty minutes later, she cast a Silencing Charm and screamed my name.

Her wedding was beautiful, her dress the purest white, her skin radiant. They exchanged vows and I was impressed at her acting skills. It almost sounded as though she were happy. Later, at the reception, she came toward me without her husband in sight. I grabbed her arm, asked her if she loved me. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and sad and full of tears. Her makeup was still impeccable, her hair lovely. She seemed incapable of holding my gaze, so she looked down, said, "Completely," then walked away. It was the last time I saw her.

The rain still pouring, I find myself on a cliff. I had been following a stream and now it falls off of the edge - a long way down. Love is like a waterfall: it's an illusion. Waterfalls are supposed to be beautiful, but there is nothing at all beautiful about getting to the edge of a stream and spilling over. It's just concentrated rain. And love - love is about getting to the end of a friendship and falling over, getting pulled in. It's a sad affair.

Twenty-four years old and I have no one left. Even Pansy Parkinson is respectably married. Last I heard, she was pregnant, too. The perfect Pure-blood wife. I should have stayed with her, held on through the cheating, held on even though I wanted Astoria. My parents disowned me when Millicent Bulstrode got married a year ago. There aren't any Pure-bloods left for me to marry. My mother whispered at me to get out of her house, to go off somewhere and make something of myself if I ever wanted to come back because I was a disgrace to the Malfoy name. I wish she would have screamed. I could never take her disappointment in me, her only chance at furthering the Malfoy line, her only son. I knew she loved me. It made it worse.

If I ever had any friends to begin with, they deserted me a long time ago. First Crabbe, in the Battle, fallen from his own carelessness. Afterward, Goyle tried to make something of himself, wanted out of my shadow, I think. He left for Germany without saying goodbye and never tried to stay in contact. Blaise - I couldn't forgive him for what he had done with Pansy. I couldn't forgive him for marrying her years later. I couldn't forgive him for becoming everything that I was supposed to be. And without friends or lovers - what is life? I lost my power and prestige. Being a Malfoy means nothing anymore. When I introduce myself now, I say my name is Draco. I lost the good favor of my father, of the ministry, of everyone important. Happiness is just a childhood dream I once remember having.

I spend the night on the rocks beside the stream. I'm too close to the edge and don't care much. It's windy and I don't do anything to make sure I'm safe. I wake up with a start when it's still black outside; to my disappointment, I hadn't moved at all in however many hours I was asleep for. Slowly, I pull myself up, stretch, walk the short distance to the edge. I hold on to the trees poised there and just look, listen. Even in the darkness, the waterfall sparkles like diamonds. _It's an illusion_, I remind myself. _It's nothing but an illusion._

The wind is strong on the cliff and after awhile my arms are sore from trying to hold on. I give up. I let go. I jump. For a moment it's better than flying and the wind blows around me and I can hear a few birds singing. Below me, the waterfall rushes perpetually downwards and it looks like a painting. I can see the pale orange color of the horizon. It must nearly be dawn. I feel a smile form on my face for the first time in what seems like years. The last thing I remember thinking is, _so this is happiness._


	9. Last Kiss MollyiiLysander

**A/N: Written for a plethora of different competitions. The ones it's entered in and the prompts are listed at the end of the document. I'm not JKR and the characters belong to her. I'm not Taylor Swift and the song that loosely inspired this piece belongs to her.**

**Word Count:** 2,548

**Rating: **T

**Warnings:** Non-explicit mentions of sex.

_The Sky at Dawn_

He was a rock star. The lead singer in the band _Wizards and Wrackspurts_, and he had been on three world tours before he turned twenty-two. I was the daughter of the Minister for Magic and always in the public eye. _Witch Weekly _only caught my attention if my name wasn't somewhere on the front page. That didn't happen often. The first time we appeared on the cover of the popular magazine together, it was two separate pictures with one caption: _Romance sparks between rock star and political A-lister? Lysander Scamander and Molly Weasley seen together in Diagon Alley._

We were never intimidated by each other. When we would run into each other occasionally, my mind would always go back to when we were seven and racing each other on toy broomsticks around my Grandma Molly's backyard and how he fell off and I refused to go back to help him until I'd reached the finish line. He told me once that whenever he saw me in dress robes with my blonde hair done up nicely, he'd think about when we were first years and how I spilled an entire pot of dirt all over myself during Herbology.

We shared a childhood. We shared the spotlight. It was inevitable that one day we would share our love.

It happened one day after he played a show in London. Roxanne insisted on going. "It's _Wizards and Wrackspurts!_" she called as she dragged me out of the flat we shared.

"It's Lysander Scamander," I said unenthusiastically as I ran a brush through my hair. "We grew up with him."

"Maybe so, but now he's in a band! He's famous!"

"We're all famous. My dad's the Minister. Yours runs the best joke shop in the world. We're nieces of Harry Potter. Who cares?" My voice remained calm as I searched my closet for the best Muggle clothes I owned. Once I was ready, Roxanne reached out and grasped my wrist, turning on the spot and Apparating to an alley near the concert.

I hated to admit it, but they were really good. Lysander deserved his fame, and probably a lot more than I deserved mine. But regardless of whether I merited it, fame was mine, and used it to walk backstage after the show to find him.

"You aren't half bad, Ly," I said, walking into his dressing room without bothering to knock. He wasn't half bad, no, but he was definitely only half dressed. That made it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying to me. He'd inherited his father's body; slim and built and tall, with his mother's pale blonde hair and blue eyes. Merlin, he was gorgeous, and I found myself wondering how I'd never noticed.

"I thought you didn't like rock much," he said.

"Yeah, well, Roxanne dragged me. Had hold of my wrist and Apparated here before I could say no."

"Well I'm glad you came. Stay a minute, have a drink? For old times' sake?"

A minute turned into several hours, accompanied by slurred confessions of childhood crushes and memories from the years we spent together. I teased him about his Hogwarts relationship with Kaelyn Finnigan, and he made fun of the string of short relationships that had been my Hogwarts career. A drunken invitation to his hotel room followed, and that was where I woke up the next morning. Despite the catalyst, the relationship that developed between us was founded not on a drunken one-night stand but on the childhood friendship that led up to it.

We were perfect for each other. Every tabloid we came across said so.

I Apparated to his shows whenever I got the chance, and he made sure to accompany me to all my father's black-tie events. He'd put away his strange Muggle clothing in favor of formal robes, take my arm, and walk me gracefully down the red carpet like some sort of prince. It didn't take long for my father to get over the fact that he was a rock star, and Lysander was invited to more family gatherings as an adult than he had been as a child.

"I love you, Molly," Lysander would whisper to me on the nights he was home. He would hold me close and run a hand through my hair, and I would eye my empty left ring finger longingly. I was sure it was only a matter of time.

Then, one morning after I'd stayed over at his mansion, Lysander yawned and kissed my cheek. I was still half-asleep, since we had only just gone to bed a few hours beforehand, and by the time I roused myself enough to roll over to greet him, he was out of bed and mostly dressed. "Where are you going?" I mumbled as he wandered around his messy bedroom looking for clothes to wear.

"I have to go up to Aberdeen, remember? It's just for a week, though. I'll write you. Now get some sleep, it's still early."

I was too tired to question why he wasn't taking me with him. He always took me with him. I didn't think about why he dismissed me with an "I'll write." I was asleep before he finished shutting the bedroom door.

When I awoke properly that afternoon, I began to rummage around his room for my clothes and stuff them into my bag. My pyjamas had consisted of one of Lysander's t-shirts, and as I changed into proper clothes for the day, I hesitated with his shirt in my hand. At the last moment, I tossed it in my bag as well, something to remember him by for the week he would be gone. I'd spent nearly every night with him for the last six months. A week was going to be a long time.

Something felt terribly off during those seven days. I dismissed it to myself as just missing him, as the now-unfamiliar routine of spending my time in the flat I still shared with Roxanne. I didn't eat much and skived a few of my father's less interesting events with the excuse of a stomachache. When he insisted I visit Grandma Molly to make sure I'd be all right, I started attending again, but I could tell that the luster was gone from my eye.

The week passed and Lysander hadn't attempted to contact me at all. I didn't know where in Aberdeen he was, and the next show for _Wizards and Wrackspurts _wasn't scheduled for another month. I couldn't sleep. I Apparated out to the countryside where I could watch the stars, away from the glow of London. A meteor shower started. I absentmindedly wondered if this is what it felt like for stars to die.

Three weeks later, I still hadn't heard from him. During those weeks, my emotions couldn't make up their mind - first I was upset, then enraged, then scared for his life. What could make him leave me? I didn't know. I was sure something had to be wrong, no matter the number of excuses Roxanne made for Lysander's silence. Then, finally, in the middle of the day, an owl came. I removed the note from his leg and sent him on his way, and with trembling hands, I opened the letter.

_Molly, this isn't exactly how I wanted to tell this to you, and you know how much you mean to me. But while I was in Aberdeen, I ran into Kaelyn Finnigan and it turns out she was never really over our relationship, and one thing led to another and - I'm sorry, Molly. You'll always be my best friend though._

_All my love,  
__Lysander_

"Liar! You're a liar! You can't sign a break up letter with 'all my love.' That's just - it's sick." I lost my voice for sobbing and collapsed onto Roxanne's waiting shoulder.

"You knew this might have happened, Mol. He was so attentive to you, when we were kids, when you started dating - you had to have known there was a reason he didn't even write for three weeks."

"Yeah, I know, Rox. But it doesn't make it any easier."

Mum dragged me along to a Muggle opera that night. It was a tragedy - I could understand that much without understanding the Italian at all. And as the curtain closed and the finale ended and the actors came back onstage for a final bow, I was reminded of Lysander again. We were both stars in our own right, and part of a beautiful story that began in childhood. But stories aren't the same if they just keep on going. Stories end. Our finale had passed; the curtain had dropped; I was supposed to move on.

But I couldn't.

I had always been so strong, but without Lysander I felt myself becoming fragile, like I could break at any second. It turns out falling is a lot like flying except you have a more permanent destination. Time passed. I couldn't let him go, couldn't get myself out of the pit that I'd fallen into without him, so I sat alone in an empty house because Roxanne had started dating someone and never came home anymore. I don't think she wanted to be around me much. Not that I could blame her. I didn't want to be around me much either.

The t-shirt I borrowed - stole, I guess, is how it seems now - from Lysander the last time I saw him was over-large and made me look frumpy. It was the only concrete conclusion I could come to after some untold hours in front of the mirrored closet doors in my bedroom. I'd been sitting there so long that the carpet had started to make indents in my bare legs, but I didn't care much. My mind was still preoccupied with Lysander.

Everything seems to happen at a faster pace, a deeper intensity, when you're famous. I remembered playing in the backyard at the Burrow with Lysander when we were seven. It was so simple, chasing each other around on toy broomsticks, poking fun while his mother talked to my grandmother. Then dad became Minister. Then we graduated Hogwarts and Lysander started a band. Then, finally, _we _happened. Long overdue, but it was far too soon, it turns out. Twenty-two is too young to fall in love with your best friend. Or too old. It's the wrong age, at any rate, because especially when you're a rock star, your twenties are about having fun, not about settling down with the girl next door (famous or not) and starting a family.

If only we'd waited. If only we hadn't been drunk and overeager and too willing to jump in. Maybe it would've worked out between us, if we took our time, waded slowly into love. But maybe not. If only we could have found out. _If only. _Those might be the two saddest words in the world.

Different memories from over the years came flooding back to me, most of them from the six short months of our relationship. I thought about how he normally looked, hair down to his shoulders, a bit of a shaggy beard on his face, the way he sauntered along, hands in his pockets, because he knew he was a rock star. It was nothing like when he first was reintroduced to my father as my boyfriend. He had shaved his beard, combed through his hair, put on an acceptable outfit. He stood tall and stiff, almost like he was imitating Dad, shaking hands as if it wasn't a man he had known for as long as he could remember. I loved him all the more that day, and told him so.

We attended a Ministry ball together over the summer. I had dressed up all fancy, hair done up elaborately, and stood along the sidelines of the ballroom while people waltzed across the floor. Lysander came back from the drinks station empty handed. "Dance with me."

"No. I hate dancing."

"Please? I'm a wonderful lead, I promise. I'll take care of you, Mol. I always have."

I couldn't help but smile and take his outstretched hand. He pulled me around the floor, his rhythm making up for my lack thereof. It was the best dance of my life, with kisses interspersed throughout, and neither of us cared that the press was there and that our picture was being taken. When we saw the _Witch Weekly _that featured our dance, Lysander just turned to me and said it was the best night of his life. That was three weeks before he left for Aberdeen.

Breakups are hard for anybody, but it's worse when it's being documented and you see the person's picture everywhere. When I finally got up the courage to leave my flat and walk through Diagon Alley under a dull gray sky, I saw three posters advertising _Wizards and Wrackspurts_, Lysander dancing like he always did. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was playing one of their singles. _Witch Weekly _was worst and I saw his arm wrapped around Kaelyn Finnigan's waist and he had a twinkle in his eye that was just a little brighter than it had ever been with me. The caption of the photograph noted exactly the same thing. I hated this. Sometimes I felt like I knew more about his life now than when we were a couple. All I had to do was walk through Diagon Alley and I could watch his life in pictures like I used to watch him sleep. And with every passing day, I could feel him forget me the same way I used to feel him breathe when I was wrapped up inside his arms.

I picked up the few things I needed from the Alley, then turned to stare at one of the band's posters. I let my arms go slack and rested my head against his, whispering to the picture that couldn't talk back. "All I know is that I don't know how to be something you'll miss." Then, before I did anything more rash than talking to a poster, I Apparated back to the flat.

Our last kiss, our very last kiss, was uneventful. But I would always remember it. We lay in the bedroom at his mansion, large windows on the wall opposite looking out over the countryside. He held me close and we were both exhausted. He told me he loved me seven different times that night. Outside, the blackness of the night sky was changing and dawn approached. "Ly, look outside."

He did, then took my hand and the bed sheet and we walked over to the window. "It's beautiful, Mol. Everyone always says that sunset is the most beautiful time of day, but I don't think they are ever awake to see the sky at dawn."

I smiled and rested my head against his shoulder. He pulled away, then tilted my chin up to kiss me. It was a sweet tender kiss, grown again out of years of friendship. We didn't kiss for long, but he held me, staring out at the sky until birds began to sing. At their song, we went back to bed to sleep away the last few hours of our romance.

**A/N: For the NEW Ultimate Taylor Swift Competition with the song "Last Kiss" by Taylor Swift and the prompts: fragile; "If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world."; gray; an empty house.**

**For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the prompt: Finale.**

**For the Stars and Constellations Competition with the prompts: "Sagittarius. A swarm of many stars. Star chains. Contains some young, hot stars." The title "The Sky at Dawn." "Falling's just like flying but with a more permanent destination." and "Scared."**

**Also for the Pairing Love Competition, with the pairing (which I chose myself).**


	10. Some Nights Dean

**A/N: Written for the Word Count Drabble Challenge 2 (word count: 924); Langlock in the Harry Potter Spells Competition (no dialogue); the "Stretch Your Limits" competition round 4 – killer level (Dean Thomas, the title, and the first sentence); the Song Fic Boot Camp (Song: Some Nights by fun. Prompt: Muggle); and the first round of the Hunger Games Competition (anything I wanted). I am not JK Rowling or fun. Except that I am fun. I'm just not in a band called fun.**

**Word count: 924**

**Rating: K-plus**

**Warnings: One sort-of swear word, though I toned it down from the song.**

_New Tricks_

All he remembers is running. Days and nights blurred together. Forests, fields, small villages - Dean was never really sure where he was and didn't particularly care. When he was younger, in those days before Hogwarts, he used to pride himself on his stamina. He could play football all day and never grow tired. But this kind of running was different. It wasn't that he was always moving, that he had to keep running like a marathon. Sometimes, though, the sitting still was harder.

He lay wherever he could and tried to find something like a pillow. Sleep evaded him. His eyes would close and he would start to give in to the call to unconsciousness, but then he would hear footsteps. Every nearing footstep could be the end of him, and he knew it. The _thump thump thump_ of boots along the ground; the amplified _thump thump thump _of his heart to match it - his bated breath while he waited to see if his pounding heartbeat would give him away.

It hadn't yet. But at night, in a silence that only seemed like the calm before the storm, all he could think about were the what ifs. What if he were caught? What if he had been younger, before he learned Disillusionment charms (however rusty his might be)? He thought about Colin, then Dennis. What if Dean had known who his father was? Was it possible his father was a wizard? Dean could have been back at Hogwarts with his friends. Maybe they wouldn't have the best year, but surely it was better than this - surviving. It certainly wasn't living, or what he imagined on that day when Professor McGonagall came to explain to his mother he was a wizard.

Magic was supposed to fix everything.

Magic was just making everything worse.

What if he had been Muggle like his mother? He could be at the local comprehensive, playing football with his mates from primary school. Maybe he would have gotten even better, been scouted by some League Two team, played football. Or practiced art. He could be living with his mum right now, looking over brochures for universities. He could have been anywhere, but instead he was here, in the middle of a wooded area, nothing but the clothes on his back and the wand in his hand.

It wasn't the first night he'd spent that way, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last. Some nights he would stay up, counting all the bad luck he'd had in getting where he was. Some nights, happier nights, he would call it a draw. After all, he was still breathing, still fighting, still able to make it. When he was younger, he would look into the nighttime sky and pick out the constellations, ask his mum to repeat the stories of how they got that way. But now, when stars came out at all, they were just stars. He didn't pay them any attention.

This running, this hiding and hoping - this was war. As a kid he had watched movies with war in them, with guns and fight scenes and confrontations with the bad guy. Black and white movies, with all their hype, that was how he understood war. He didn't feel like much of a soldier, crouching under a tree, avoiding anyone who might find him. But he didn't feel like a martyr or a victim, either. He was just Dean Thomas, Muggle-born football fan, scared to death to face the night.

There were new tricks to learn every day - things to keep him a little bit safer, overheard bits of spells when Snatchers came by and attacked those less fortunate than he was. He would watch and copy the motions, the words, practice on a stray rabbit if he got the chance. He taught himself what berries he could eat, watched the animals to learn what plants they frequented. He learned to sit by a stream and Summon fish, and how best to cook them. Survival was all about knowing the right tricks.

Dawn neared and he had yet to sleep. It was close enough to morning that he decided to follow the growling of his stomach and begin to look for food. Half-asleep, he hadn't thought to protect himself and he heard voices, then footsteps. He froze.

So this was it. When he was eleven, he would have all but sold his soul for the chance to be a wizard. But he would have sold his soul for _this?_ He missed his mum for _this_? He had kissed her goodbye and promised her he'd be safe (a lie) so he could die alone out here in the middle of nowhere. Who the hell wants to die alone, worn out and dried up they'd been left out in the desert sun?

The silhouettes were getting closer. He wasn't sure whether he should prepare to duel or to surrender. Both seemed equally tempting. Was his life worth more to him than his bravery? He never signed up to die a martyr. But when the sun rose a little more and their faces came out of silhouette, he saw a man in his 50s, a goblin at his side. They came into the sunlight, the man's wand raised into the air in an act of surrender. On instinct, Dean trusted them. He smiled for the first time in what felt like weeks. Perhaps the next trick of survival was friendship. Amazing things can come from some terrible nights.


	11. Payphone HarryGinny

**A/N: Written for the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song Payphone (I finally used the title to this collection!), and for the As Strong As We Are United Competition, with the prompts darkness, loss, and photograph. Also for the Not-a-Song Fic Competition with the pairing Harry/Ginny and the song Payphone, and for the Harry Potter Spells Competition, for Obliviate (write about someone missing someone and having memories of them.)**

**Written especially for Lucy (WeasleySeeker) for the Valentine's Day Gift Exchange, with her prompts roses, flourish, moonlight, and agitated. The dialogue in italics from Neville near the end (and the situation it describes) is taken from her one-shot "Resistance," which you should all read next. Other events in that paragraph are from (a) canon and/or (b) my multi-chap "All We Know is Falling." [which you should also read. ;)]**

**I'm not JKR or Maroon 5 and own neither the characters nor the song lyrics that loosely inspired pieces of this.**

**Word Count:** 3019

**Rating: **T

**Warnings: **Ginny swears a lot when I write her, but never any *really* bad words...

_Petals on the Ground_

* * *

Auntie Muriel's place was small, and Ginny was agitated to be there at all, let alone at such close quarters. Auntie Muriel might as well have been three people with her ability to meddle, and toss in her mum and father, and Ginny felt constantly surrounded by people. "We only want the best for you, dear," her mum said this afternoon when Ginny hadn't yet managed to get out of bed.

"Well maybe you don't know what's best for me anymore! I'm sixteen, and I should be at Hogwarts helping Neville. Especially without Luna there-"

"Ginevra, you know we could never live with ourselves if we let you go back there and something happened to you. I would rather you were safe and home than receiving an Order of Merlin, First Class, on your behalf because you did something stupid and got yourself killed."

Ginny tossed the duvet off of her and said up. "Mum! Honestly, talking about my death all casually like that."

Her mother smiled knowingly. "In the same way you were talking about putting yourself in danger, Ginny. You're safer here."

"Okay. But I'm not going down for tea. I want to be left alone for a bit. Could you please just give me a few hours?"

"Yes, but you'll be downstairs - dressed, with your hair brushed - for dinner."

Ginny nodded. A few hours alone was far more than she'd been given since her parents held her hostage over the Easter holidays. She hadn't been at all surprised - especially with the injuries the Carrows sent her home with - but it still left her irritated. She hadn't been in hiding a week yet and already she missed Neville. And in the silence, where the only bustling activities were housecleaning and her aunt searching out gossip, and where, in a change of pace, she needed hardly any effort to try to remain alive, her ache for Harry had only magnified.

She tried not to talk about it; any conversation about Harry would inevitably turn to a conversation about Ron, and she didn't think her mum would want to handle that particular topic. Her mum was still sore about him leaving school, even knowing what kind of a place it had been. Hell, Ginny didn't want to _have _that kind of conversation. So instead she moped, and thought about it anyway. Over and over again.

_Harry. _Was he even still alive? When was the last he was heard from?

_Harry_. Did he still care about her at all? Did he have a chance to think about her while he was off doing whatever it was he was doing?

_Harry. _Was he going to be so changed when - no, if - he got back that he wouldn't want to be with her anymore? Was _she _so changed that they wouldn't work?

The thoughts melted together in her head, a stream of _HarryHarryHarry _that never stopped and she wished she didn't care so much so it wouldn't hurt so bad. But wishing wasn't enough. She still wasted every night that separated her from Harry - nearly a year now - counting back over their few weeks of happy memories, trying to figure out what it was they could have done differently. How could she have kept him? How could she have convinced him that it was _not _better this way? Because it wasn't. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Ginny still had her Galleon from the D.A. and wondered if Harry did; she would know if something went wrong with Neville, if something happened at the school. She knew Neville would be sure to inform her and use the fake Galleon. But Harry wouldn't contact her if something were to happen. She knew that. He was too damn noble, too damn concerned about not letting other people in and getting them involved.

He kept burning down every bridge that might have connected them. It sucked - they had built some damn good bridges. Those weeks at the end of her fifth year had been some of the happiest of her life. The pretensions of her celebrity crush had long since dissipated under a genuine admiration for who he was. Her experience dating other people prepared her for a relationship, and rather than solidifying her love for Dean or Michael, her relationships only solidified the love she had for Harry. At the end of her fifth year, when she should have been studying harder for O.W.L.s, wondering what N.E.W.T.s she would get to take, she was holding hands with Harry Potter and running off to a secret broom closet, or finding a private alcove down by the lake.

Kissing him was far better than she had imagined, which was impressive because she had imagined it hundreds of times from the time she was a young girl. His lips against hers, his hands in her hair, the way he would mumble softly into her ear that he loved her... Hours passed that way, and neither of them felt like they were missing anything. If there was ever a time she could call true love, that was it. But now she was paralyzed, lying in a bed at Auntie Muriel's, but stuck in the happy times of their relationship. It was so much easier to think about those days than it was to worry about him now, half angry with him for leaving at all, half worried sick over whether or not he would ever come home.

She was pulled out of her reverie by the sound of music coming up the stairs, a happy little tune by Celestina Warbeck. Her mother must be cleaning. She always listened to Celestina Warbeck while she cleaned. But this song, right now, in the mood she was in, - Ginny didn't think. Still in her pyjamas, she was halfway down the stairs and running to the radio before she knew what she was doing. She shut it off manually (damn being underage; damn her mother caring) and faced her mother, cheeks heating up from rage. "If I hear _one more __**stupid** _love song," she yelled, Molly less than a foot from her, "I'll- I'll be-" she collapsed into her mother's arms, rage turned to sobbing.

Her mother cradled her, though Ginny was the taller of the two, and guided her to a floral print loveseat in the corner. Placing Ginny's head on her shoulder, she said, "Thinking about Harry?"

"Of course."

"It'll be okay, Ginevra. You'll get through it."

Ginny pulled away, standing up and staring over her mother, her face once again looking sharp. "You can't expect me to just... be _fine_, you know, when he's out there." Her mum's mouth opened in a reproachful way, but she shut it quickly as Ginny snapped at her. "But I can't expect _you _to care, of course. You and Dad, home safe during the last war, raising babies like everything was okay. Like _you'd _understand."

In an instant, Molly was on her feet at her side, grabbing her shoulder and forcing her daughter to face her. "Ginevra Weasley, don't you talk that way about me! You don't know the half of what happened during the first war; don't you _dare_say that life was easy."

"You had Dad," Ginny reproached.

Molly's face softened. "Yes, I did. But I lost my brothers in keeping him. There aren't many days that pass, even now, when I don't wonder what I could have done to save them."

Her heavy, shallow breathing calmed down as Molly's own calm and information sobered her. Finally, she quietly said, "I couldn't imagine losing a brother," and went back upstairs. She joined her family a few minutes later, hair brushed and wearing a proper outfit for the first time in a few days. Walking past her mother on the way to the dining room, she murmured, "I'm sorry."

Molly nodded and sat down beside her. Dinner with the three adults wasn't nearly as bad as Ginny expected it to be, especially when all her past experiences with Auntie Muriel spoke to something awful happening. Though she was quieter than usual, and the conversation wasn't joking and loud like it was when her whole family was present, it was something. She hadn't realized how much she simply missed having company. Loneliness is really only a comforting state when companionship has been forgotten.

In fact, Ginny would have called dinner that evening as the most enjoyable part of being in hiding thus far, until Muriel turned to her suddenly and said, "You and that Potter boy. I saw the way you looked at him at Bill's wedding. Did you two ever end up seeing each other?"

Her fork was nearly to her mouth and overflowing with a heaping bite of casserole when she slammed it back onto the plate. As it crashed down, she said, "Obviously not, as he's off doing Merlin knows what and hasn't spoken to me since August. Thanks for asking."

"Ginevra! Don't talk that way!"

"Why shouldn't I? She asked a stupid question-"

"Ginny!" It was her father speaking that time, and to upset him took much more work. She held her breath. "Go upstairs. I'll talk to you later." She sent him one more contemptuous look and marched away, leaving a plate of half-eaten food behind her.

She needed some kind of outlet for her energy, but as anything magical was sure to be caught and get her into even more trouble, she resulted to tidying up her already immaculate bedroom. She threw things around without much care for their fragility, and only broke one vase in the process. Auntie Muriel would be unlikely to notice anyway, as half a dozen others sat on the wardrobe alone.

If Harry were there with her... if Harry were there... she tried to convince herself that things would be different. But she doubted that was true. In the ten months since they had briefly experienced a fairy tale ending, it became hard to remember the people they used to be. She was still baffled that he wasn't there next to her, taking care of her. In one quick conversation after Dumbledore's funeral, he'd turned his back on the possibilities of tomorrow as if he'd forgotten what life had been like just yesterday. Although, she supposed, there were some days that change everything.

But every bit of change she had, every change she had made, seemed to have been wasted on him. She gave him, rather unabashedly, all of her love, and he seemed to give it away, or at least set it aside.

There was a light knock on the door, but her father didn't wait for an answer before coming in. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her. She said the first thing that came to mind. "We don't even have a picture together."

"Gin- wait, what are you talking about?"

"Harry and I. We've known each other for more than six years. But we don't have a picture together. The closest I ever got to seeing his face at school this last year were wanted posters listing him as Undesirable Number One." Saying the words made her feel ill. She made her way to the bed and curled up across from her father, leaning into the padded headboard. It was easier not to yell when he was there. She wasn't sure if it was because there was something more calming about him, or just that the similarities between Ginny and her mother were too many to keep them civil.

Arthur reached out to pat her knee. "That's really what this is all about? Just love?"

"_Just _love? You say that like it's a small problem." For the first time since before leaving Hogwarts for the year, Ginny felt a genuine smile taking over her face.

"That's not at all what I mean, Ginny. Love is always a very big problem to be in. Dumbledore once told me that young love makes even the best of us miserable. But missing Harry isn't a good enough excuse for your behavior since you've been here. I know you miss him. But you can't forget - Ron's out there with him, too. Whatever you're feeling for Harry, you must know your mother and I feel at least as much for missing your brother."

"It's not just that I miss him, though, Dad." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Of course that's part of it, missing him, worrying that he's okay. But I don't even know where we'll stand when he gets back. Ron will come back and he will be your son and my brother, just like he always has been. Going away won't change that. Mum will be angry for all of a half second, then they will hug and cry and be mother and son again. But Harry and I? I don't know where we'll stand. He keeps building barriers and burning bridges, trying to think of reasons we can't be together. Who says that will stop - even if the war is over and we win?"

Arthur sighed, but his voice had the air of reassurance. "You'll get your happily ever after, sweetheart. It just not might be when you want it - and perhaps it won't be with whom you want it."

She scoffed. "I stopped believing in happily ever after. If it existed, I'd still be able to hold him. I would know he's safe. I would know he loves me."

"One day you'll see. You're still sixteen - there are still a few more years yet before you should worry about happily ever afters not existing."

He got up to leave, and despite herself, Ginny found herself saying, "Wait, I thought you came upstairs to get me in trouble for dinner."

Arthur smiled. "I think you have created enough trouble for yourself. But your mother and I expect you to be more sensitive in the future; remember we're all feeling apprehensive."

Outside, darkness had fallen, and it, far more than the daylight of late spring that she'd been sleeping through lately, made Ginny want to go outside. "Dad?"

He paused at the doorway. "Yes?"

"Do you mind if I go for a walk? Just around the garden once or twice."

"I think that would be okay. Ask your mother on the way though, please."

"Fine." She did so, and after promising to be no more than fifteen minutes, she went outside. The air was cool and seemed to refresh her from the stifling air she felt inside. This sort of being alone, when it was voluntary and out of doors, was much different than locking yourself into a bedroom out of spite and heartache. It was almost regenerative. She walked slowly and stopped along the back fence to observe the roses. Under the moonlight, they looked strong, like they were fighting against the blackness of night, like every place of luminescence was a triumph. The wilted petals on the ground beside the plants didn't even feel like loss. It was more like a sacrifice, small things given up for the flower as a whole to flourish. There under the moonlight, the roses reminded her of war.

It was strange, the comfort she derived from them, like somehow this picture of war in front of her made everything seem like it would be okay. The sun even sets in paradise, and darkness falls. That was the key, she thought, the absolute key. Darkness falls. The two words described two things: first, a day ending, the sunset coming and leaving stars and moonlight in its wake; but they also describe the end of darkness - darkness falling away, being defeated in the end.

She thought of every sacrifice she made during her time at Hogwarts - losing Luna at Christmas, the nights of being punished, the first-year Gryffindor who lost her life at the hands of the Carrows. She remembered the first time she faced detention with the Carrows, and how she screamed when she hadn't wanted to, and Neville hadn't, and later that evening she found her lips against his and hadn't yet forgiven herself for it. But Neville - he seemed to understand. "_It's always been Harry for you, hasn't it?"_

And it always would be, she realized. If he came home and decided he couldn't be with her, it would still be Harry. If he fought against You-Know-Who, and if he... if he lost, it would still be Harry. It would always be Harry. If he wasn't there, she would die an old maid, because she couldn't imagine putting anyone through a life married to someone who only _almost _loved them. Those brief moments with Neville at the Yule Ball, and their kiss that followed years later - they were enough of a taste for her to realize how little anyone else would do.

But perhaps there was something to be said about wartime being about sacrifice. If she lost Harry, it would just be another petal on the ground. She could make it through, certainly. It wouldn't be pleasant; she could tell that based on her attitude now, when he was only absent but not gone. But it would be manageable. Maybe, with time, it would get easier.

But if he came home, and fought, and won, and lived - her whole life would come back with him. Maybe he wouldn't be whole. Maybe it would take awhile yet to find their happily ever after, for him to trust her with the secrets of this year, for her to trust that he would tell her in time. Certainly, in war time, that had to be enough.

Carefully, she knelt down into the soil beside the roses and snipped one off. The thorn pressed into her skin, but didn't draw blood. She brought the rose inside and went straight upstairs, coming back down with one of the vases she hadn't already broken. "Auntie Muriel? Do you have some water? I would like to keep this rose in my room."


	12. Nightlife LilyJames

Written for the 2013 Gift Giving Extravaganza for Mew. Prompts: doting!JamesLily with baby Harry, "It's just a job, dear," and "Nightlife" by Phantogram.

Also for the songfic boot camp, with the prompt "stand." and the song "Nightlife."

Also for the As Strong As We Are United Competition, with the prompts "lemonade," "sing," "hidden," and uprising."

The dialogue in italics near the end belongs to JK Rowling, whom I'm not.

Word Count: 1122

Rating: K-plus

* * *

_The Only Thing_

"James, are you sure?" Lily asked, cradling her sleeping son to her shoulder.

"It's just a job, dear. I'll be fine. I promise."

"Let me come with you. I've been trained; we can fight together."

James moved close to her, but instead of wrapping his arms around her like usual, he stroked the black, messy hair of his infant. "What about Harry?"

"Sirius can watch him," Lily said with resolve.

James pulled back, a grin on his face that reminded Lily of their time at Hogwarts. It felt like a lifetime ago. It had only been eighteen months. "You'll trust Sirius with Harry alone?"

"He dotes on the kid, James. I'd just feel better if I was fighting at your side. I want to put some of that training I received to use. The uprising is only getting worse. You know we can use as much help as we can get."

Now James was closer, nearly touching the whole length of their bodies, and he held a hand to her cheek and brought her close. Though Harry on her hip got in the way, their kiss was as passionate as the many they'd shared before becoming parents, and when Lily finally pulled away, she was breathless. "Floo Sirius?" she asked. "I'll put Harry to bed."

She went upstairs to Harry's small nursery, the young child cradled in her arms, but still awake. "Oh Harry, dear, I can't wait for a world without war for you to grow up in," she mumbled into his soft hair, then sat in the rocking chair to sing to him.

He was nearly asleep when Sirius clattered up the stairs, shouting "Lils! I'm here! You and James can go now. I've got this."

Lily couldn't help but grin when she saw him. "Hello, Sirius. Harry was nearly asleep, but it looks like you've got a wide-awake six-month-old to deal with now. If you need anything-"

"I'll be fine, Lils. You and James go save the world."

She smiled. They planned to do exactly that. Down in the living room, husband and wife Apparated away, holding hands.

That night, they left a battle unscathed for the last time.

* * *

Apprehensively, Lily looked out of the window of their master bedroom. She sighed with relief; it was finally dark outside. She was getting so tired of hiding. They had been hidden now for just over a month, secret keeper taken from Sirius at the last minute. "It's too obvious," James had said. "You-Know-Who will find him - torture him. I'm sorry Lils. I can't imagine life without Padfoot."

"Wormtail then?" she suggested, and they both breathed easier.

Harry was getting bigger, and with his growth came restlessness. He could walk and ride around on that ridiculous little toy broomstick. He said "Mum," and "Dad," and "broom," and "now" and he was so, so loved.

But during the daytime, he would stare out of curtains onto a square of happy houses that didn't know they were there. He would see children playing in the street, tug on James's arm, and drag him to a window. "Out? Play? Dad?"

"I'm sorry, Harry, but you have to play inside."

Harry's temper grew shorter the longer their hiding drew on. He was okay only in the nighttime, when he couldn't see the streets outside, when he didn't know what he was missing. He would crawl onto Lily's lap, and James would sit by them and read him a story. He would calm down and fall asleep content.

"Lily, are you okay?" James asked one night after Harry was asleep.

Lily contorted her face until she thought it was pretty, stress-free, like it should be. "I'm fine, James. It's night now. I'm okay at night. We're supposed to be inside having family time at night, you know?"

James wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, kissing her hair. "I'm restless, too, Lily. But I hear rumors of his defeat. It's got to be soon, Lils. I'm sure of it. We'll get our lives back again."

"You know, James, it might be difficult being alone all the time, but love is the only thing I need. And I have that in spades with you and Harry," she said, then kissed her husband's cheek. "I'm off to bed, okay?"

"I'll join you."

* * *

Halloween was hard for Harry, and they had to keep the shades drawn. He had spent all afternoon by the window, pointing out the various costumes and attempting to name them. When his parents stopped paying him attention, he toddled over to Lily and tugged at her jeans. "Me?"

"No, Harry. We still can't go outside, I'm sorry."

Eventually, James distracted him with his little toy broomstick, zooming around the living room. While Lily wasn't the diehard Quidditch fan her husband was, she was amused at how easily it placated her son, at how he took to riding a broomstick even quicker than he took to learning to walk.

They had sandwiches and lemonade for lunch, despite the autumn weather. It felt like a day for summer. For the first time in months, Lily felt content, like her life was truly complete with just James and Harry inside their lonely house. For the first time in months, Lily forgot about the war outside, and she forgot that she was being hunted.

It seemed that James had forgotten, too, because when the door opened up that evening with just James downstairs, when Lily put their tired son to bed, neither of them were armed. She heard James's warning up the stairs, but didn't know what to do about it. She had no wand; she was defenseless. Just as suddenly as they started, James's shouts were over, but Lily didn't have time to think about it.

A snakelike man stood at the threshold of the nursery, wand raised, looking intimidating and calm as he approached her. On instinct, she stood up in front of Harry's crib. "_Not Harry, please no don't kill him, take me, kill me instead -"_

The intruder's voice was high and cool. "_This is your last warning-"_

"_Not Harry! Please... have mercy... Not Harry! I'll do anything..."_

She looked into his eyes and stood listening to her baby son screaming behind her and her life flashed in front of her mind in seconds.

(Love) Harry and James in her arms as they played earlier that day.

(Was) because it's ending, and she won't _be_ anymore to have an 'is'.

(The Only Thing) because there was never anything else, was there?

(I Ever Needed) magic, friendship, schooling, training, everything else was nothing - nothing at all.

* * *

(Her last stand left her crumbled on the nursery floor.)

There was only love.


	13. My Darling - Ron and Rose

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "My Darling" by Wilco and the prompt "'Mione." Also for the Snakes and Ladders challenge with the character Ron Weasley.

Written for Ashleigh, who loves father/daughter moments.

Word Count: 746

Rating: K

* * *

_Fatherhood_

"She's crying again," Ron said, pacing awkwardly and not quite holding his newborn daughter correctly.

Hermione moved beside him and repositioned Rose's head so it was cradled in the crook of Ron's elbow. "Yes, Ron," she said. "She's a baby. Babies cry. All too soon she'll be telling us exactly what she wants, trust me."

"Oh, I know." He held a bottle to his daughter's lips and sat down on their couch, his wife settling in beside him. "Do you think she'll grow up before I figure this out?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just afraid she'll be too old to need me the moment I figure out how to be a father."

"Ronald, honestly. Do you not know what you just said?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, turning his attention from his daughter to his wife.

"You're entirely wrong, you know. About everything."

He let out a disgruntled snort. "Yes, I know. You make sure to tell me this all the time."

Hermione sighed. "That's not what I mean. It's just that you said Rose might one day be too old to need you. That will never be true. I still need my father sometimes, for advice, for someone to talk to. It's just different when you're older. But also, I don't think we'll ever figure out how to be parents. We just sort of... make it up as we go along. And change if we realize we've made a terrible mistake. And, I dunno, hope Rose turns out wonderfully in spite of us."

"You don't know what you're doing, either? But you're supposed to know everything! You read about a million books on pregnancy and parenting when you were pregnant with her."

"Books aren't everything. Rose didn't come with her own manual, Ron. I'm improvising a bit myself." She smiled and kissed Ron's cheek.

"I think it's time for Rose to get some sleep. Do you mind if I put her down alone?"

"Not at all."

Ron gingerly walked up the stairs to the nursery, scared at every moment that Rose would fall from his arms. She was only two weeks old; he had only been a father for fourteen days. Parenting was far more difficult than anything he'd done so far and, considering what he'd accomplished in twenty-six years, that was impressive. Inside the nursery (painted a shade of light pink called Rose that Hermione had insisted on the moment they named her), he sat down in the rocking chair in the corner and realized it was the first time he'd been there, rocking his little girl to sleep.

In his arms, Rose began to fuss, her face screwed up and pink, arms flailing. "Shh, Rosie. It'll be okay. Go back to sleep now, my darling." Ron felt strange, talking to this small creature he knew couldn't understand him. He was reminded of the first few awkward weeks of his relationship with Hermione, unsure what to do, stiff arm around her shoulder. If parenting could grow from here to what his relationship had become with Hermione... well, he knew that one day it would all be worth it.

She settled down as he glided the chair along, cuddling into his elbow and seeming perfectly at peace. As he watched her, he fell in love with his daughter all over again. "We made you," he whispered. "You are the most magical thing I have ever witnessed."

Even after her eyes were long closed and her breathing even, he stayed with Rose in his arms, just looking at her, rocking her back and forth, being comfortable for the first time at the idea of fatherhood. "Ron? Is everything okay?"

He looked up, surprised to see his wife at the door. He hadn't heard her come in. "Shh, Hermione. It's fine. She's already asleep."

"Are you ready to put her down, then?"

"Okay," he said, but he was reluctant to let go. He had been enjoying the peace he felt alone with her. "I'll be back downstairs in a minute, love." Carefully, he stood up, making sure Rose moved as little as possible. She wiggled in his arms, and he gasped, but she was still sound asleep. He laid her in her crib and kissed her forehead gently. As he pulled away, he could have sworn he seen her smile. "Sweet dreams, Rosie. And please don't grow up too fast."

He kissed her soft downy hair one last time and went downstairs to his wife.


	14. Gone Away - Xeno and Luna

For the Snakes and Ladders challenge with the character Xenophilius Lovegood.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "Gone Away" by the Offspring and the prompt Afterlife.

For the As Strong as we are united competition with the prompts splash, flight, consistent, permission, and fireplace, and the bonus prompt Luna Lovegood.

Rating: K-plus

Warnings: None

Word Count: 706

* * *

_A Way to Carry On_

You drop down to your knees and run your hands through the matted hair of your daughter and wonder when it was last brushed. She is only nine, you remind yourself, and she is grieving too. She seems preoccupied and unhappy and you miss the little girl she used to be, singing carefree at her mother's side.

It's been a week and you still keep running through everything that happened, trying to think of a way you could have fixed it and kept her here. You wonder every day how Freya could have stayed with you, and try to tell yourself that she is somewhere better. But heaven feels so far away, because heaven is where she is and she hasn't been here for a week and your world has grown cold without her.

"It's not your fault, Daddy." You had forgotten she was there in front of you, because you were looking into her eyes and seeing her mother, but she is dead. Luna is still here, you tell yourself. Luna is still here and she is grieving better than you are.

"I know, sweetheart," you say, but you don't mean it at all. You could have kept her - you knew her experiment was dangerous and you should have helped... you should have helped.

Luna comes back and hands you her brush and you start brushing her yellow-blonde hair and you think of daisies. It reminds you of Freya but the monotony of brushing is soothing in a way. In front of you, Luna's hair begins to shine again, but you are seventeen in your mind's eye and Freya is there with you picking blackberries near her house. You are holding hands and walking along a stream and it's summer and the sun beats down on you like gold, forcing its fortune into her hair. Her laugh echoes now and part of you knows it's only Luna, but you hear her beside the stream as you take off your shoes and splash in the water, lips still sweet from blackberries.

The memory ends and you are there in your living room by the fireplace which hasn't been lit even though it's winter because it was always _her_ job and you can't bring yourself to admit that you have to move on without her. Luna falls backward into your lap and you stroke her now-shining hair but you are staining it with tears, and you know you have to be strong for her. It's just you and Luna now.

You wonder if there is an afterlife you will get Freya back in. You wonder if her spirit is around to help you care for her. She never asked permission to leave and you don't know how to raise a little girl on your own. Two more years before she would be at Hogwarts, two more years where you know you have to be there for her, raise a child on your own. You know you love her and it doesn't feel like a sacrifice, except you feel like she deserves better. She deserves to have her mother.

When you visit the grave the next morning, you are bundled up against the cold and the rain of winter, but Luna runs ahead and says she is flying. You ask her to be careful; you are worried for the cold, worried knowing how it is all your fault if something happens to her on her flight. You love her. She reminds you of your wife, and you love her so much.

You kneel beside the mound and stone that says Freya Lovegood and doesn't even give her forty years on earth. It's wildflowers you leave there, knowing she would scoff at roses, and beside you, Luna is solemn too. You come consistently here, habitually, and when Luna wanders you sit and call out the name of your wife. You ask her and every being you can think of to trade places and you think of the stories of the resurrection stone. They say it isn't any better - the veil it draws between you - but the veil between death and life is always too much.

You go home and somehow find a way to carry on.


	15. Fix You LilySnape

For the Snakes and Ladders challenge with the character Severus Snape.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "Fix You" by Coldplay.

Warnings: Mild mentions of parent/child abuse.

Rating: K-plus

Word Count: 762

_Broken_

* * *

"Shh," I say as we sit in the grass at the edge of the playground and he cries unashamedly. "It will be okay. We only have two more weeks." His hair is greasy and uncut, his clothes the same he's worn for a week. The jeans are getting too short, and the shirt must belong to his father.

He looks down at the deep gash on his arm, bleeding through the rags I used to slow it. "Soon we'll have magic and I can learn..." He hiccups. "I can learn to do to him what he does to me."

"Sev," I say, trying to take on the warning tone my mother uses. "Sev, that can't be what magic is for. We can learn to heal it though, right? Does your mum say there is magic for healing?"

"She won't tell me." And he still isn't looking me in the eye, still staring at his arm, or blades of grass, or the metal swings across from us that move slightly in the breeze of late August. "She won't ever talk about magic in front of me."

"We'll learn, Severus. I promise we'll learn." I reach out and pat his knee, though the gesture feels somewhat awkward. "Potions or Charms, or even Defense Against the Dark Arts - we'll learn something to fix you, okay? We'll fix this."

* * *

We're fourteen and it's summer again. We meet at the park like we always do but today he looks triumphant. "I think I have it," he says as we sit down. Our knees touch and I barely have time to blush before he scoots nearly imperceptibly away.

"What do you have?"

"Remember what my dad did to me right before first year?"

"How could I forget?"

"I think... I've been working really hard and I came up with a spell to mimic the pain he puts me through. I tried it on him tonight." There is a smirk in his eyes that is rare, these days. I know the crowd he spends time with at school and they have taken the life from his cheeks more than his parents ever did.

"But there's a restriction on underage magic!"

"I have a magic mum, remember. They don't know who did it."

The triumph in his face looks almost evil and it scares me. "Severus, no. You can't have done something like that. I mean, is your dad okay?"

"No idea. I don't care."

We sit in silence until the sun sets. I feel like this side of him - the one that creates spells for torturing his father, and spends time with Death Eaters in training and pretends he doesn't know me half the time at school - it needs fixing even more than the broken child I remember from before school. _I'll be the light to guide you home_, I think as the last rays of the sun turn the metal swing set to fiery gold in front of us and I have to shield my eyes. _I'll fix you, Severus._

* * *

We are sixteen and home for the summer. I go to the park where we used to sit but I avoid the grass and choose a swing instead. I feel childlike but not childish, letting the gentle, absentminded motion of the swing rock me into something like calm. The day Severus Snape told me he loved me and the day he called me a Mudblood were barely a week apart. We haven't spoken since, and I'm afraid to. I wonder if my rejection of his love led to his rejection of my friendship and the use.. the use of that awful word.

Suddenly he is here too, sitting in our favorite spot and staring out at me with that distant look in his eyes. They have lost all their sparkle; brown irises fade into black pupils and there is nothing but the whites of his eyes and the abyss in the center. I think we both realize it then, as we sit a hundred feet apart and stare at each other. We've lost something we can't replace and we can't have it back.

We've both broken it, really. He loves me, I tell myself. He loves me and I've ruined it with a schoolgirl crush on Potter. There is nothing left to fix in him, or in me, or in us - whatever _us_ is.

But I love him, too. I know it but it's a different, difficult kind of love. I'll never get him back, I realize, but I keep swinging higher.


	16. Glad You Came SiriusMarlene

For the Quotes Competition with the quote "well-behaved women seldom make history" and for the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "Glad You Came" by the Wanted. For the Snakes and Ladders Challenge with the character Sirius Black.

Word Count: 878

Rating: K-plus

* * *

_Glad You Came_

"Yeah!" Sirius shouted as he made his way out of the stands to the Quidditch pitch, where James stood, looking triumphant. He pulled his best friend under his arm and grinned at him. "Well played, mate!"

"Thanks, Padfoot! Did you see that last goal I made?"

"It was brilliant." Sirius turned his attention to the crowd at large. "Hey, everyone! Gryffindor take the Quidditch Cup! This can only mean one thing-"

"Party in the Common Room!" James finished for him as they made their way toward the Entrance Hall with a crowd of admirers behind them.

Even as the crowd pressed against him and there were shouts of congratulations and orders of Butterbeer, Sirius was looking for only one person, and so far he hadn't found her. At the Fat Lady, he gave the password and climbed in, the crowd pressing him behind him. There on a couch in the corner, a blonde girl was already sitting. "You didn't come to the match?" he asked, genuinely hurt though he didn't play himself.

"We've got N.E.W.T.s soon," she responded simply.

"You're staying for the party, though, aren't you?" he asked, eyes wide with pleading.

"A party thrown by you and your friends? No way, Black. I have work to do." She dropped her gaze and began poring over a textbook again.

"Come on, McKinnon. Well-behaved women rarely make history." He winked, and took her hand.

The sun went down outside, darkening the Common Room which was now lit only by candles, but it only added to the atmosphere of the post-Quidditch party, which was still going strong hours later. James had managed to sneak in some Firewhiskey and the party was just sixth- and seventh-years, enjoying themselves immensely. Marlene had downed a few Firewhiskeys herself, and Sirius was rather impressed with her as he held her close while they danced. "Let's get out of here, McKinnon," he whispered sloppily in her ear. "I know of an excellent broom closet."

"You cast some kind of spell on me, didn't you, Black? I feel like the sky fell on me."

"That's just the Firewhiskey. You'll be over it soon enough. But time is slipping away from us. Come with me - I'll make you glad you came tonight." He tried to keep his voice seductive. "Let's go somewhere private... where no one else can see you and me." Despite his request, he was surprised when she slipped her hand into his and followed him out of the portrait hole. They didn't return for hours.

* * *

"Black!"

"What, McKinnon? I'm studying!"

"That's funny," she said, sitting down beside him. "I didn't know you knew the meaning of the word."

"Well I've got to get top grades myself if I want to get in to the Auror program."

"You're really joining?" She asked, and he could hear genuine worry in her voice.

"Yeah, I'm really joining, if they'll let me. You-Know-Who... he's crazy. And I want to help bring him down. James's parents..." he said, but his voice trailed off. It had happened over the summer, but even nine months later, he didn't like to think of what had happened to them. Sirius finally had nowhere to go. "Anyway, you came over here. Did you want something?"

"I was just wondering why... why we haven't spent more time together since the Quidditch party."

"Sorry, McKinnon. Relationships- well they just aren't my style."

"I should've known," she said, and walked away in a huff.

* * *

The meeting for prospective Order members was about to start, and Sirius was pacing about nervously. James and Lily stood beside him, tall and proud and seemingly unafraid of what they were signing up for. Peter was there too, his expression unreadable. Even with the right N.E.W.T.s and the proper training, Sirius was still worried about what he was signing up for. Certainly, he'd always been a little reckless, and he wanted to fight the man who enamored his brother into a life in the Dark Arts, but suddenly standing in a room of peers and old teachers, everything finally felt real.

"Black," he heard behind him.

"McKinnon? What are you doing here? I thought that this sort of fighting wasn't your style. I thought you would want to remain more in the background or something."

She smirked. "Well-behaved women rarely make history. Isn't that what you told me?"

"So it was," he said, and reached out to squeeze her hand. There at his first Order meeting, Marlene McKinnon standing at his side, holding his hand, Sirius felt like his universe would never be the same.

"Those of you wishing to join the Order, please step forward and sign this parchment," Dumbledore was saying. Sirius and Marlene began walking at the same time. When they reached the front, Dumbledore smiled at them kindly and held out a quill.

"Hey Marlene?" Sirius asked, using her first name for the first time as he elaborately signed his name.

"Yeah Sirius?" She took the quill from his hand.

"I'm glad you came." For once in his life, Sirius was sincere.

"Yeah, me too," Marlene replied, as she signed her name as a member of the Order of the Phoenix.


	17. Just Around the Riverbend RoseScorpius

Written for the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "Just Around the River Bend" fr om Pocahontas with the prompt "breakup." Also for the Disney song challenge by WeasleySeeker, with the same song choice.

Written especially for Ashleigh (fire the canon) for her 21st birthday. Some Scorrose with a bit of Rose/Hermione family thrown in. :) Happy birthday!

**Word Count**: 2180

**Rating**: K-plus

**Warnings**: None

* * *

_What I Dream the Day Might Send_

The worst thing that could possibly happen is having the man I love show up at my engagement party.

He has.

I'm standing in the kitchen at the Burrow, holding hands with my fiance and accepting the congratulations of his parents when Scorpius Malfoy walks through the door. The room is full to overflowing and I'm mid-sentence to Mrs Macmillan when my jaw drops and my eyes are wide; next minute, I'm out the back door, running as hard as I can for the only place where I have always felt at home here. Soon, in my engagement dress, I'm splashing along barefoot in the creek at the edge of the property. The water feels clear, calm, cleansing, which is good because I feel completely dirty.

I shouldn't have let it get this far. Susan, Ernie, and my parents set Bryan and me up years ago, when both of us graduated Hogwarts without having dated anyone (that they knew about). And we get on just fine, the two of us. He's predictable, boring, and doesn't have any interesting plans for his life, but he takes good care of me, holds my hand in public, and has never, not even once, made fun of my hair. I don't love him. I never have, though I say I do often enough. I feel like I'm in the company of a good friend when I'm with him, and we have wonderful conversations, but he's going to go on to work for the Ministry, follow in his father's footsteps, and doesn't want to see the world like I do. He doesn't want to do anything interesting. And when we kiss... let's just say I can only tolerate his kisses by closing my eyes and thinking about Scorpius. Bryan and I have no chemistry at all.

Now that I've seen Scorpius at my engagement party, I can't remember a single reason why I agreed to marry Bryan. As the water rushes past me, I think back over moments in my relationship with Bryan, trying to decide whether or not he was worth it.

On our first date, he takes me to _Lumos_, a high-class restaurant in London that I'm sure he can't afford. I dress up and so does he, and he holds my hand across the table as we talk. He is kind, and doesn't always talk about himself. He seems genuinely interested in what I have to say. But I am distracted by every blond man who walks in; Bryan doesn't notice. He compliments my hair, takes me home before my curfew, and kisses my cheek lightly. I don't see what he sees in me.

The first summer, we spend most of our evenings cuddled onto a couch at his parents' house, alone as we could wish for, and he enjoys exploring my mouth. I wish I enjoy his kisses and caresses, too, but I always find a way to leave early. He thinks it's because I'm chaste, which makes me laugh once I'm alone.

Bryan cannot see beyond the plans his parents make for him. He honestly means it when he says his deepest dream is to make his parents happy. Mine... not so much. I look for dreams around every corner; I want to be more than the daughter of Ron and Hermione Weasley. And no matter what I said when he proposed (a textbook proposal; so perfect in every respect except that _he_ was the one proposing), my dreams don't include being Bryan's wife.

Am I allowed to break off my engagement at my own engagement party? I don't know, and I sit down beside the stream, letting my perfect dress get muddy, and keeping my feet in the flow of the clear water.

"You know what I like best about rivers and creeks?"

"Mum? I didn't hear you coming," I say, but scoot over to make room for her beside me.

"I had a feeling you would be out here. Although it takes some guts to skive your own engagement party."

"Scorpius is here," I say; while I haven't told anyone how I feel about him, my mother surely already knows. She seems to know everything.

"I noticed. Do you know what I like best about rivers?" she repeats.

"What's that?" I really hope she has a point to this, preferably something relating to how to handle the presence of Scorpius Malfoy at my engagement party.

"You can't step in the same one twice. The water's always changing, always flowing. Water near the bottom gets caught up on rocks and ebbs, but the water in the rapids keeps on going. You're always down here by the creek, Rosie, but you've never sat beside the same water."

"I'm not sure what you mean," I say, because I know she isn't talking about creeks.

"The same thing is true of people, and families. You and Scorpius are Weasleys and Malfoys. But you aren't the same Weasleys and Malfoys who used to hate each other. It's a different river, Rose."

"Then why did you let me date Bryan? Why did you let me get engaged to him?" I'm suddenly angry. If she understands me so well, couldn't she have done something to keep me from being in this situation to begin with? She should've known that I still wanted Scorpius. She never stopped wanting Dad, even when he was dating Lavender. She should've kept me from making such a dumb decision. That's what mothers are for.

"I thought you had moved on," she says, and her tone is sincere. "You seemed ready to be over him, and I thought you could use a distraction. Bryan is kind, and he was - still is - head over heels for you. I thought maybe two of a kind was better for you than all the differences you and Scorpius have."

"See, that's the thing, Mum! Scorpius and I aren't nearly as different as Bryan and I are. He wants a quiet life, working his way up the Ministry, doing everything his parents tell him to. Never caring to discover life for himself. Scorpius and I... we see the world differently than other people, but the same kind of different. We dream and try and think of new ways to approach life. I feel like if I marry Bryan, my days of dreaming will end. I'll become a housewife and raise his children and that's it. It's - it's safer. The smoother course to take. But to be safe, I'd lose the chance of ever knowing..." My voice trails off and I pause for a moment before continuing on. "Scorpius and I are similar, but we still can fight something crazy, you know? And who knows if he still wants me. But you're right, Mum. I can't confine myself to a stagnant pond when I'm meant to be on a river, looking for something different."

Mum smiles, seeming amused. I know I misinterpreted her words, but it makes sense. Extends the metaphor or whatnot. Plus, I hear that she and Dad used to fight worse than Scorpius and I do. Maybe I should take the risk and be with him.

"Mum?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I break off my engagement at my own engagement party?"

"It's your life, Rose. And your party. Do what you want to. But I would talk to Bryan first, if I were you. He deserves to hear everything from your perspective."

"You're right. Can you bring him out here? I don't think I can face all those people at the moment." She nods and we get up, and Mum takes out her wand to clear the mud from my dress. "Thanks," I say, and shift nervously on my bare feet, waiting for my fiance to join me. The wind moves quietly through the trees and a few birds chirp peacefully in the distance. It's really the perfect summer's day.

Ahead of me, I see the stocky frame of my fiance approaching, and as he comes out of the shadows, his silhouette transforms and I see his dirty-blond hair and his dark brown eyes and smile at the sight of him. He's been a good friend to me. He, at least, has done nothing wrong. "Rose? Is everything okay?" He pulls me into a hug and leans down to kiss me, but I move away.

"No, not really."

"Is this about Scorpius? I saw him come in and then you disappeared."

"Yeah, I didn't think he would be here. I didn't think he'd have the guts, honestly, to show up. But seeing him... it's made me think. Bryan, you are a wonderful person. You really are. But you're looking for a safe life, one that follows your parents' expectations, and not looking beyond it, and that's not my style. I love you," I say, but it's a lie, and I think we both know it, "I really do, but I feel like our relationship would crush my own dreams for living."

"You're still in love with Scorpius."

I look down; I can meet his eyes with a stone face when I'm lying, but for the first time in the three years of our relationship, I'm about to tell him the truth. I can't face him for it. "Yes. I'm sorry, Bryan. I am really, truly sorry."

"Is it over? There's no chance for us?" He reaches for my hands and pulls me close. For a moment, I'm tempted to give in, to let his familiar arms hold me one last time, but I resist. He's not Scorpius.

"It's over, Bryan. I can't marry you. I'm sorry, I really should have dealt with this sooner, but I hadn't seen him, and I thought I could move on but-"

He puts a finger over my lips to shush me. "Don't say too much, Rose. I guess we have to go call off our party?"

"I guess so," I say. I straighten my dress and make sure my hair is still controlled. I want to look like I have _something_ figured out, though I feel like my insides are falling apart.

Bryan takes on the airs of his father when we walk inside, not holding hands, though we walk side by side. "Everyone, thank you so much for coming here today for this important occasion. However, Rose and I have decided... I mean, we have just discussed things and, well, we're ending our engagement."

"You're breaking up?" Albus calls from the crowd incredulously.

"Well, yes, we are. I'm sorry everyone. Make sure you take your gifts with you on the way out. We both truly appreciate your support."

Everyone begins to file out, picking their presents up off of the table as they leave, whispering loudly among themselves. I don't like the words I'm hearing about myself and run upstairs to Aunt Ginny's old room. Scorpius is already there. He smiles at me as I enter, though my eyes are starting to stain with tears. "Scor? How did you-"

"I knew you'd come up here when everyone started leaving. You'd want to be away from people."

"Well... yes. But in case you hadn't noticed, you're _people_ too."

He looks himself over, exaggerating his examination. "Why yes! So I am! But when we were in school, you said I didn't count. That when you needed to be away from people... if everyone left except for me, you were alone enough."

"You remember that?" I ask as I sit down on the opposite twin bed from him.

"Of course I do, Rose. I remember a lot. I remember our breakup better than I would like to. And I understand if this is too little too late, but I was wrong. I've been avoiding you for years because I knew I was wrong. I thought maybe you could be happier without me."

"Scor, no. You know I could never be happier than I am when I'm with you."

"And I haven't been happy since we broke up, either, Rose. Maybe this is pretentious of me, but did I have anything to d o with you ending your engagement?"

"You had everything to do with it."

"I hoped so," he says and smiles.

I get up from the bed and make my way to where he is sitting. The three steps it takes are straight across, but I feel like I'm winding down the riverbend my mother had been talking about. I feel like Scorpius and I are rapids, ready to move on and leave Bryan in the eddy of his parents' expectations. "I love you, Scorpius. I've only ever loved you."

He answers by pulling me down onto the bed beside him. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for a kiss, and in the next few infinite moments, I'm reminded what it is I used to love about kissing. There is nothing quite like kissing him, and before I know it, I'm murmuring against his half-open lips. "Marry me instead."

"Gladly," he says against my tongue, and deepens the kiss until it becomes our forever.


	18. The Little Things RonHermione

For the Snakes and Ladders Challenge with the character Hermione.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "The Little Things" by Colbie Caillat and the prompt canon (the word doesn't appear, but the situations are from canon...)

An early birthday present for Lucy. Have a great birthday, Lucy!

Rating: K-plus

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1176

_The Best Kind of Crazy_

I.

Hermione and Ron lay beside each other, Hermione on the sofa, Ron on the floor. They were holding hands and it was driving Hermione crazy. She couldn't sleep with the feeling of his hand in hers; the small touch only left her craving more. She was also very aware of the light snoring coming from where Harry slept nearby. As much as she wanted to crawl off the couch and place her head on Ron's shoulder and fall to sleep peacefully against him, Harry was there. And they were at Grimmauld Place because of Harry, to help Harry, not to have some sort of romantic rendezvous. Hermione had always relied upon her logic, and logically, anything that would happen with Ron would have to wait until after the Horcruxes were hunted and destroyed, until after the war itself.

(But why, then, did holding his hand feel so right? And must she crave more now, today?)

II.

Ron was trying to be noble. Part of Hermione wanted to scoff at him, to tell him to get back to being his normal self, but part of her was touched at the action. Harry looked at her pointedly, as if to say _I told you so. Let him love you. I'll be all right._ But she also watched Harry staring at that map, tracing Ginny's name as her footprints pattered across Hogwarts. She couldn't do that to him. She had a feeling that throwing her arms around Ron and kissing him and admitting that his little acts of gallantry were making her crazy would make Harry feel worse.

She smiled at Ron, a polite, condescending smile, and said it was her turn to wear the Horcrux; she could take care of herself, thank you.

(And as she wore it, she regretted it. She didn't want to hurt Harry, but hurting Ron wasn't helping anyone either. That night, all three of them were miserable.)

III.

The Horcrux affected him more than it did her or Harry; she could tell. He sat brooding for hours outside their tent. Harry didn't know what to do any more than Hermione did, so they stayed inside, heads together, trying to think of a way to cheer him up. "Just snog him already," Harry said offhandedly. Hermione was glad her bushy hair covered her cheeks as she blushed. "Really," he continued. "Don't you mess this up."

She thought the same thing a few hours later when Ron turned on them and began to yell at Harry. Hermione cringed as he blamed them for scheming without him. _If only he knew what we were scheming_, she thought. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything. And like Harry wished for her, she wished for Ron - _don't you mess this up. I don't want to lose you._

(But she did lose him, and Harry lost him as well. She couldn't bring herself to look her friend in the eye, and that night when she cried, every little look and touch Ron ever sent her played back in her head. She didn't know if he was safe, or when - or if - she would ever see him again. She talked in her sleep that night, though Harry didn't tell her. _Don't just leave me hanging on._)

IV.

Hermione sat by herself for days, Harry rarely interrupting her, while she wondered whether she was better off without Ron. Her logical side, the part that raised her eager hand to the ceiling when she knew an answer, the part that resided in the library and solved problems, the part of herself she hated more than anything, thought that she and Harry could do better on their own.

But Ron was their heartbeat. Hermione knew deep down that even if she and Harry found all of the Horcruxes overnight without him, and figured out how to destroy them, they would never be better off without him.

(And it took weeks before she could even say his name out loud, but she finally did and she felt her heart warming at his name, even in the snow, even at midnight, even after everything was lost.)

V.

When Ron came back, shivering, soaking wet, and holding the Sword of Gryffindor, he wore a strange look in his eye - a mixture of exhaustion, courage, and triumph. Hermione knew she should be happy, and she wanted to pull him into a hug and dry him off and tell him how crazy she was without him.

But her temper beat her to it, and Harry had to restrain them. He had left her. She didn't know if she would see him again, hold him again, or ever find out what his lips tasted like.

(The pain was too much to bear and it was nearly as hard to forgive him for coming back as it was to forgive him for leaving.)

VI.

Regardless what Harry said or pretended in that moment, Hermione knew very well there was a war going on. She thought that was all the more reason to be doing what she was doing, Basilisk fangs lying forgotten on the ground beside her, feet stuck against ground below them. It was a long kind of _finally_ that had nothing at all to do with house-elf liberation, and she knew they both knew it.

Every little thing for the past year, or two years, or maybe seven, had been leading to this moment.

She pulled herself in closer to his eyes, and rested her forehead against the bridge of his nose. Now that they were here, in what would hopefully be the final moments of the final wizarding war, she wanted to break free and make it with Ron because surely there was finally something between them worth fighting for.

(And even when she thought that Harry had died and the world was over, Ron held her closely, saying sweet things to comfort her and though she knew she would miss her best friend so very much, she had Ron and he finally _knew_ and surely that had to be enough.)

VII.

"Wake up, Ron," she said, though he was perfectly alert. There were times when he was nonsensical and this was one of them. They both still had piles of grief to muddle through, but they did so holding hands now. "Do you think this is a thing I would give up?"

"I was just afraid-" The best way to cut off sentences was with kisses. Hermione had always been clever and she learned this quickly.

"Don't be. Every little thing you do to me... it drives me the best kind of crazy."

(It would take a long time for war wounds to heal; they both had scars. They spent their days like everyone else - rebuilding the outside and trying to stitch back together the inside pieces that had fallen apart. But at night there were little things to be had between them - touches, kisses, looks of love - and Hermione knew these were infinitely more important.)


	19. Wait it Out KatieOliver

For the Snakes and Ladders Challenge with the character Oliver Wood.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "Wait it Out" by Imogen Heap.

Word Count: 1012

Ratings: K

Warnings: None

* * *

_Wait it Out_

I sit in the top box at the Puddlemere home pitch, feet up on the seat, elbows on my knees. I've been on the team for six years and finally this season I've been made starting Keeper. It's such a nice feeling, finally coming out when Lee Jordan announces the players, hearing the crowd shouting. My life is going exactly the way I wanted it to. All the papers say so.

But when I was planning my life out, I never counted on Katie.

I mean, I _did_ count on Katie. I counted on her to be a consistent goal-scorer at Hogwarts. I counted on her smile to cheer me up after losing a game, or for it to be absolutely radiating after we won. But in school, the three years between us were enough for me to think of her as a teammate and nothing more.

After the Battle, though, we got to talking. She had grown up in the years since I'd seen her, and her smile was all the more brilliant. In the rubble of our school, we shared our first kiss.

We shared many, many kisses after that one; eventually we shared a flat, we shared our lives. Until last week, when I came home from training in France to a flat devoid of most of her things. She gave me no warning, Two days later, she appeared on the doorstep.

"Katie, Katie you're here," I said, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head. Her body was rigid against me. "I was worried about you."

"That's a first," she said bitterly. "I didn't realize you were aware of having a flatmate."

"What are you talking about, Kate? A flatmate? You're my girlfriend; that's so much more than a flatmate."

She shrugged me off of her, began collecting the few things she had missed. "Funny you mention that. I'm not your girlfriend anymore, Oliver. If you ever saw beyond the tip of your broomstick, maybe you'd have realized how little time we spent together. Angelina had a bet you wouldn't even notice I was gone. We're over, Oliver. I can't be with someone who loves me second best."

"Katie, I-" _Crack_. She was gone.

The worst part, of course, is that I know she's right. Practice demands got to be more and more after I was promoted from the reserve team, and I never made time for her. I figured, I suppose, that we had all of our tomorrows ahead of us, that there would be time for her at some nondescript later. I don't know how long I've been sitting here, piling pain on pain and watching them repeat. My life with Quidditch, the one I've always wanted, feels like a backup life, a makeshift life that I'm living until Katie comes back. Because I know Katie. And somehow, I'm certain she'll come.

I hear footsteps on the staircase behind me, and the heavy breathing of someone who doesn't regularly sneak into the top box at the local Quidditch pitch. The footsteps stop; the breathing continues. Then, finally, "I thought I might find you here."

I don't turn around to face her and there is a bite to my tone that I can't bring myself to regret. "Where else would I be? Like you said, I don't have anything else. Or anyone else."

When I do turn around, I do a double-take. I don't think I would've recognized her if I'd looked before she'd spoken. Puffy eyes, messed up hair, baggy clothes that I think might be Angelina's, she doesn't look herself at all. "Oliver, I... I can't get beyond the questions."

"What are you talking about?"

"Where do we go from here? Do you think we'll be okay? How are you? Will," she hiccoughed. "Will you be able to play or will you be distracted by my leaving? I have so many questions, Oliver. Angelina told me I need to get past them. After all, _I_ broke up with _you_. But I can't get past them."

"They say time heals everything," I offer. I'm not ready yet to accept her. I still don't know what happened, or why, or how we can get it back.

"But what about the in-between? Between now and whenever it's all healed. What do I do about that? Should I just wait it out? Oliver, I'm sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn't have left you without talking to you first."

"I shouldn't have given you a reason to think you needed to." I still have a hard time admitting when I'm wrong, when there's something I should be working on. But seeing her like this, to see her defeated in our breakup rather than triumphant, I know I can't keep biting. She may have made the most recent mistake, but it's her only one and I've made scores of them. It seems so obvious that Katie deserves better than me. I don't need much, nothing fancy, just a street-level miracle that she'll stay with me. "I'll work on it. If you come back I promise to work on it - to put you first, and tell you when I have training - whatever you think you need, Katie."

I stand up and walk toward her, opening my arms to her and seeing her smile for the first time. She pulls me close and stands on tiptoe to place her lips against mine. "You, Oliver. I need you. I'm so sorry I thought I didn't. I'm sorry I left you."

"It's okay, Katie. I deserved it. I know I did. But can we get back to being what we should be being?"

"Gladly," she says and wraps her arm around my neck. She places her head on my shoulder, not leaning into me but looking over me. Pulling back, the sun catches the mischief in her eyes. "Would anyone care if we take the Firebolt 3.0s for a spin?"

"Probably," I respond honestly. We're halfway down the stairs, hand in hand, when I speak again. "Let's do it anyway."


	20. Good Morning Sunshine RonHermione

For the song fic boot camp with the song "Good Morning, Sunshine" by Alex Day (though I took some of its darkest lines...) and the prompt "Harry."

Written especially for Jasmine (being a wallflower) for the Gift-Giving Extravaganza! Jasmine, as you didn't have prompts listed in mine, I took prompts from what you gave to Nayla... (sorry, Nay! I'm sure you can reuse them...) I used the song listed above, falling through your fingers, treacherous, and swept away.

Word Count: 1134

Rating: K-plus

Warnings: A bit dark, but it's _canon_ darkness…

_Swept Away_

Deep down, you know it's the Horcrux. You know your own thoughts aren't so treacherous when the Horcrux is safely around Hermione's neck, or Harry's. Its whispers come at night, in the dark, although for you the whole day feels like darkness with those thoughts chained around your neck like some kind of noose. _It's winter and we're in Scotland,_ comes a logical voice inside your head that sounds very much like Hermione. _Of course it's dark nearly all the time._

But you know better. The darkness is inside that damned Horcrux. Inside _yourself._ And you aren't sure how much longer you can take it.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, you think bitterly, sitting outside the tent with your knees bent up close, arms wrapped around them. You haven't had much absence from Hermione over the last few months. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe a bit of separation is what you need. But no, you think, you'd be leaving her with Harry, and like the Horcrux whispers every night it enchains you, why would she want you when Harry freaking Potter is right there?

You can't help but wonder - if the darkness comes tomorrow, if the darkness gets worse than it already is, would you be able to keep her in your mind? _Hermione..._ You know she'd stay. She would be your every thought. But would you be hers?

Back and forth you rock, your mind swaying with your body. _Stay. _Harry needs you. Hermione needs you. If you're here, Hermione and Harry can't... you can't bring yourself to think what it is they could do without you.

_Go. _You're not brilliant like Hermione and you're not bloody Harry Potter. No one is looking for you. You aren't needed. Hermione and Harry will be better off without you. The war will be over sooner without you.

You think about leaving in the middle of the night, just taking off without them ever knowing, but you know even as you think it that it's too cowardly a thought, even for you. And where would you keep the Horcrux when you leave? Just let it curl itself up outside the tent, looking as snakelike as the symbol engraved on the front of it? You're not that selfish; you won't risk losing the Horcrux just to get away.

Eventually, though, the part of you that says to _Go, now. _wins and you fight and Disapparate and nearly get caught by Snatchers and you panic. They're gone. You know for a fact they are gone. Near Shell Cottage, the sun is shining and there hasn't been any snow, and yet you know, you _know,_ that this is where the darkness is. You realize, all in one moment with the cold December sun shining but not warming anything that darkness has nothing to do with the amount of light. The world gets so dark, love, when you go away. Even when the leaving was your choice.

You're on the beach kicking stones and the shore catches up to the rock, pulling it into the sea, sweeping it away. That's how you feel, you decide. Swept away. No seventeen-year-old should be so deeply involved in a war, so caught up in the undercurrent that his life hangs in the balance of the waves. You hate it.

Up near the rocks, up near the safety of your brother's house, the sand isn't wet by the cold waves of the sea. It can't reach here. It can't touch here. But you pick it up and still it falls through your fingers. It reminds you of time and you wonder how quickly it will pass. You try to picture it, years from now, when Shell Cottage and Horcrux hunting are just memories. You try to see yourself reconciled to Hermione. You try to see her loving you. But it's Christmas and you're all alone on the beach and you don't know where your friends are. "Hermione," you whisper finally, the Deluminator in your hand as if you could use it to black out the sun.

"_Ron_," you hear back and the Deluminator snaps again. You feel a blue light and it enters your entire soul and you've never felt so close to Hermione. Not even when she held your hand that night at Grimmauld place. She's inside you, and where she is, you'll gladly follow. You don't have time to say goodbye, and you hope Bill understands.

You want to be where your treasure is, and you know, with the help of the Deluminator, your heart will guide you there. Maybe Dumbledore understood you after all, you think. But you're not sure if this is a good thing.

You shiver in the snow, wondering why you didn't prepare more for your return, but you sigh and smile; adventures with Harry were never planned. Not when they mattered most. The Patronus lights up the night sky, and in the dark you feel lighter than ever. Maybe it's Harry's. Maybe he's close.

You follow, as silently as you can, and you're right, it's Harry, it's _Harry_ and though it's only been weeks it feels like ages. You don't notice he seems as wary as you do toward the Patronus, but soon you are both at the edge of a frozen lake, and then he's jumped in and he hasn't come out as you watch breathless, icy air catching in your lungs.

You don't think, you just dive and pull and realize it's the necklace, again. It's trying to kill him, like it tried to kill you. But this time it's more literal. He's out and he's alive and you're both shivering, but then he insists that _you_ do it, like he knows, too, that it's your own personal demons inside that locket.

He opens it with a hissing noise that makes you shiver deeper inside your icy clothes and for moments that feel like eternity, you're almost swept away again. You feel your sanity, your composure, slipping through your fingers like the sand on the beach as the snake reminds you of everything you fear.

"Do it!" Harry shouts. "Now!"

And it's Harry's voice more than your own ability to conquer this personal brand of evil that has you raising the sword in your hands (Merlin, it's heavy, you think, and it takes all your strength to remain steady). The locket dies beneath you and you don't remember the sword dropping on it, but it must have, and you must have done it. A small part of you is proud, truly proud, for the first time in ages.

(Maybe it's okay that you went away, you think in the quiet, even long before Hermione forgives you. Because you came back. And now the darkness only feels like night.)


	21. This Heart RemusTonks

For Camp Potter - Paintball, week 1. I wrote about the Battle of the Astronomy Tower and used the prompts "This Heart" by Mary Lambert, "pretend," and "breathe."

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the same song and the prompt "treasure."

Word Count: 984

Rating: T

Warnings: Very mild mentions of sex; canon violence.

_Third Time Lucky_

The call to fight was not unexpected. The Order had been warned that something might be happening, but to return again to the halls of Hogwarts as a defender, as a warrior, was strange to Remus. He had been there twice before, once to make mischief and, once his mischief was managed, to teach.

He was not third time lucky.

The best of fighters, Mad-Eye told him, could disconnect their brains from the rest of them and do what needed to be done. If they weren't thinking about the fight, they were not thinking at all. Remus Lupin was not the best of fighters. Even as he deflected curses of Death Eaters, who seemed to have somewhere more important to be than the hallways they fought in, even as he sent out curses of his own, his mind was not in the fight.

It was in this hallway, he remembered, this crumbling hallway now alive with the sounds of death, where he first realized he was in love. A young, unassuming girl named Mary McDonald held his hand and dared to kiss his lips even though his face was already scarring. She didn't run from him; she let him hold her close for two wonderful years and they shared secrets back and forth between them like the light from curses that now lit up the hallway.

He could pretend all he wanted that what Mary felt for him was the same as the love he felt for her, but he knew it was well-intentioned pity. He had suspected all along, but knew it for sure when Jacob Bones came along and she left with a look in her eye that said, "I'm sorry, but surely you understand there's someone better."

There were so many people that were better than him, especially here in the hallways of Hogwarts where he was expected to be a cold-blooded killer. He could not; it wasn't the full moon. The fight was chaos, but it only added to the chaos inside of him, his mixed emotions as he stared, the school he loved collapsing around him in slow motion that was still much too fast.

After James and Lily died, and Sirius was imprisoned, and Peter was in hiding, Remus left familiarity for a while and fell into a group of witches and wizards in Sweden, ones who understood his condition and still accepted him. For the first time, he kissed a woman who knew about his lycanthropy and decided to love him anyway, and for six short months he was blissful.

One night, when they had kissed each other so long it felt like some kind of perfect oblivion, he fell asleep with her in his arms. But when he awoke the next morning, content and smiling with the sunrise, she was gone. He waited for her for a few weeks, for a month, and then realized she would never return. She was his escape, and when she left, so did his ability to run from his pain. He returned to Britain.

The battle spread out incoherently around him, but a flash of mousy brown hair that should have been pink became his focal point among all the spells of red and green; suddenly, Remus had a purpose. He ran toward her even as so many people ran away, fighting finally like a warrior with nothing else on his mind. He arrived at the base of the Astronomy Tower where she fought.

A logical monster inside of him knew several things: that she was a trained Auror and he was not; that she could take care of herself; that she fought while he fretted. But he slayed that monster so much quicker than he could slay the Death Eaters around them and he fought only to protect her. This battle was suddenly so much more than salvaging the place he first fell in love.

It was protecting the place where he was now completely smitten, protecting the place, and with it, protecting the person. He could barely remember to breathe as they dueled Rowle together, working as a team before speaking, before deciding whether it was a good idea.

Just like the way they fell in love.

But Remus still wouldn't admit it, still wouldn't give in to her when she begged for his love because he had only loved twice and he wasn't third time lucky with anything. Not third time or tenth or hundredth, and he didn't want her to be just another woman who took his heart and found a way to sleep inside his ventricles, a way to become his every heartbeat. His logical monster knew it was too late and Nymphadora was already his life. But tonight was a night for killing.

Later, an infinity later, although it had only been twenty-four hours, he held her in his arms like treasure because somehow her "I told you so"s at Bill Weasley's sickbed were enough. Everything around them was falling apart; Dumbledore was gone and everyone finally understood that Voldemort was back and yet...

And yet in the alone time they found afterward his heart - so tired, so old, so beaten down - his heart held up the white flag and let the rest of him give in. He kissed her with tenderness that bordered on reverence and she kissed him back like she managed everything in life - recklessly and without abandon. He envied her passion, then copied it.

"You know we can't go back again," she said, nearly breathless.

"I'd been sleeping for months," he responded. "It's time I wake up." Their kisses were majestic and he basked in them. If her kisses were energy, he wouldn't ever need to sleep again.

"I give in," he whispered for the millionth time that night. "I give in to the whole of your skin."

And he did, and let her captivate him.


	22. Mamma Knows Best RoxanneOC

For Camp Potter - Tech Discovery, week 1. I wrote about Lucy Weasley with the optional prompts secret, impish, and losing faith.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song Mamma Knows Best by Jessie J and the prompt Smuggle.

For the [Varying Degrees of Famous Musicians] Inspiration Competition with the same song.

Word Count: 1091

Rating: T

Warnings: Strong language, casual references to sex.

_Mamma Knows Best_

Roxanne thought she had been having an excellent day. Her Potions grade came back top of the class and even Quidditch practice had been good, despite the stormy weather. She'd made every goal she aimed for that night. Even with the wind, even with the rain.

It was just disappointing that Ava had been too sick to be there. They'd been dating off and on since the end of sixth year and things between them had never been better. Their chemistry made her shiver in the hallways and they worked seamlessly as two of the three Chasers on the Gryffindor team. A perfect match. Everyone said so.

"Hey, Roxanne, maybe we can just change back in the dorm tonight," Kaelyn Finnigan, a fifth year, said.

"What are you talking about? It's been storming like crazy; we can't drip mud all over the castle."

"There are scouring charms for that, Roxie. I think you should just-" Lucy Weasley added. It took Roxanne a moment to realize that both girls had peeked into the changing rooms first.

"What's going on? Get out of my way! Let me in there!" She shoved between the two, ignoring the looks of panic and pity on their faces. As the door slammed shut behind her, its echoing momentarily overcame all other noise. But when it was gone, she heard not silence but moaning. On a bench between lockers lay Ava Williamson and Elliott Cavendish, both half naked, neither of them looking up until her scream.

"What the hell, Ava?"

"Roxie, you know we were just fooling around, it's nothing. Honest."

Elliott looked bursting to contradict her, but Ava stepped on his foot; he winced and stayed silent. "I'm not a fucking rag doll that you can pick up and drop at will. Bow out! Leave! Both of you! This is a Quidditch Changing Room, not the classroom for Intermediate Snogging. Or How To Cheat On Your Girlfriend." Still they sat there, stunned. "Leave! Take your stuff and go. You're not for me after all, I guess."

The pair started to awkwardly gather their clothes, Ava seeming suddenly embarrassed to show her body to Roxanne, who had seen it all before. "I see no reason for you to have to get dressed first. Go be proud of it. You know you want to, Elliott. Walk out half-naked and holding hands for all I care."

Ava stopped in front of Roxanne on her way to the door, touching her arm tenderly like she used to. "Roxanne, can't we talk about this, please? I love you, sweetie."

"Just because my dad runs a joke shop doesn't mean I'm always in the mood for a laugh. Whatever we were - it sure as hell wasn't love. Because love doesn't mean lying to get out of Quidditch practice to cheat on your girlfriend. Bow out, I mean it."

Ava shot her one more glance that was too theatrical to be real remorse, and as the lovers left, her teammates filed in. Their faces were more believable, at least. Roxanne made her way to her locker and changed. "I don't want to talk about it, 'kay?"

No one answered. Roxanne was grateful.

* * *

Ava somehow found the nerve to approach her in the Common Room that evening. "Roxie, babe, we're good, right?"

"What the hell makes you think that?"

She shrugged, looking impish. "You love me."

"You lied to me. How can I trust someone who lies to me? You may think relationships are about chemistry or sex or some bullshit like that, but they're not. They're about trust, and you've lost mine."

Ava planted a daring kiss on Roxanne's lips, trying to smuggle in their passion, but their chemistry had disappeared with Roxanne's lost faith in their relationship. "Get off of me! Leave, Ava. Go kiss your fucking boyfriend. Didn't even know you were into guys."

"I'm into anyone who will get into me," she said, her voice calm, even... unnerving. Roxanne stormed away, confused. Six months of a relationship, friends for years before that, and it seemed she never knew her. She slouched into a corner on the floor, Summoning parchment and a quill from her room and she began to write, balancing the parchment on the uneven surface of her thighs.

"Roxanne?" The hesitation in her cousin's voice was unnerving; Lucy was always so strong, even as a third year to her seventh.

"Yeah, Luce?"

Lucy sat down on the floor beside her, curling her knees up tight, seeming to imitate her cousin at everything. The imitation made Roxanne nervous; there were so many things about her life that weren't worth imitating. "Who are you writing to?"

"My parents." Roxanne shrugged. She didn't like admitting it to herself or her young cousin, but maybe if Lucy couldn't learn from her example, she could learn from her mistakes. "I figured out awhile ago that Mamma knows best when... when times are hard, you know?"

"Mine doesn't," Lucy said, but an apologetic look crossed her face. "But this isn't about me. What are you saying? ...if you don't mind my asking."

"I don't mind. I'm just sort of telling her what happened." Roxanne knew the letter she would get back in response, and she couldn't wait for it. Her mum was sure to show the letter to her father, and while her mum would write back with understanding words and reasons to stay strong, her dad would change the subject. He always had a joke to make her laugh. She knew what her father had been through, and he was sure to tell her and Freddie that humor made the best therapy. Normally, Roxanne could conjure her own, but not this time. She needed them.

"Are you going to be okay?"

She wasn't sure, not really. She didn't know how she could keep playing Quidditch when Ava would be there, or pay attention in Potions, or even walk down the hall. Ava was her life, her everything, and now she was gone and yet everywhere all at the same time. But Lucy was fourteen, still naive and hopeful, still certain that one day she'd find true love of her own. "Yeah, I think I will be."

"Well if you need anything..."

"I appreciate it."

Lucy didn't get up, though, and together they stayed on the floor in the corner of the Common Room. Roxanne wondered as she watched her young cousin's solemn expression what kind of secret Lucy was hiding and whether she would ever have the courage to share the burden.


	23. Someday AliceFrank

For the Sad Disney Songs Challenge with the song Someday from Hunchback of Notre Dame.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the same song and the prompt "Music."

For Camp Potter Archery with the challenge to write about waiting in 2,000 or more words.

Word Count: 2307

Rating: K-plus

Warnings: Brief references to torture.

_Someday_

Sometimes all Alice wanted to do was crawl into her son's room and hold him, watch him exploring the world around him. She wanted to celebrate his every new word, every new achievement, and take pictures of every smile. When Neville was asleep, she wanted to crawl back into her own room with Frank, close her eyes while he held her close and talk.

She wanted to pretend like there was no war to fight and everything would be okay.

It wouldn't though, and it wasn't, and it was so difficult to be an Auror in this time. You-Know-Who was gone, yes, but it had only been a few months and it was at the expense of two of the best Aurors in the Order. Every now and then, when she looked at her own blond son, she thought about the black-haired boy who lost his parents even while he single-handedly saved the rest of the world.

Harry's status as savior was likely unintentional, a baby who happened to be in the right place at the right time. If she had been that baby, Alice was sure she would want the fame and gratitude to disappear so that she could be with her parents again. She had lost her own parents at a young age, although their deaths had nothing to do with their daughter.

It left her own son with only one grandparent when he deserved four, but the three of them did what they could and they loved him. Merlin did they love him. But the work of the Aurors wasn't over yet; there were Death Eaters to track down and put on trial, prison cells in Azkaban that needed filling.

The job was dangerous, but she and Frank knew what they were getting into when they signed up. And they had a future to fight for, a future for their son. Despite everything that was wrong, Alice couldn't help but be filled with a hope that was stronger than anything else inside of her. Someday, she was sure, everything would be okay. Maybe it would take a while, when they were wiser and the world was older, but in the meantime, she had a someday to fight for.

"Alice?"

"Yes, Augusta?" she responded, laying Neville down in his crib. He smiled sleepily, then he yawned the full yawn of a toddler and curled up.

"You're not really going out tonight, are you?"

"Yes we are. I'm sorry, but it's our job."

Her mother-in-law was a frightening creature, truly, but Alice knew the fierce love she had underneath and had slowly learned that despite everything, she always meant the best. "I just have a bad feeling about it tonight. Stay here with Neville and me."

Alice sighed. "Someday the wizarding society may learn to live and let live. But even with their master gone, there are Death Eaters who want to torture and kill anyone they can get their hands on. Muggle or wizard, defenseless or not. It's my job - and Frank's job - to make sure they get what they deserve in Azkaban."

"I'm just worried," Augusta replied. "What if they go after the two of you?"

"We're trained, I promise. We'll know what to do. We've captured so many already."

"Yes, you have. And I'm proud of the both of you for what you have done. But can't they send someone else tonight?"

"Like who? We used to have backup, remember? Called James and Lily Potter. And the Potters are dead. Marlene McKinnon is dead. What should we do? Who should we call?"

"I get your point, Alice. But please be careful. I love you both."

"I know. Thank you."

Frank's footsteps were unmistakable behind her and she turned around as he approached, wrapping her arms around his neck. She could feel her eyes shining, still just as in love with him as she had been ten years ago at age fourteen. "Are you ready, dear?" he asked after they shared a chaste kiss.

"I am."

"Frank," Augusta warned him. "You be careful, and you take care of that woman, hear? I happen to be rather fond of her."

He smiled at his mother, grinning. "I am, too, Mum. I promise you I'll keep her safe."

"Glad to hear it. Sounds like someone raised you right."

"It sure seems that way, doesn't it. Thanks, Mum. I love you."

"I love you, too. Now off you go - say goodnight to your son and go save the world."

Alice giggled. "That's the plan."

Frank took her hand as they walked into the room where their son slept, peacefully gurgling and seeming to be having a pleasant dream. She leaned over his crib to kiss his blond hair and ran a hand along his back, gently rubbing in circles. Neville sighed in response, even in his sleep seeming to feel the presence of his mother.

"I love you, sweet boy," she whispered before kissing his cheeks. She moved aside to let Frank have his turn and she stood to one side, marvelling at her husband. Despite everything, she never thought he could be such a wonderful father, and watching him with their son made her fall in love with him over and over again.

As they held hands to Apparate to the location they'd been given for the suspect Death Eaters, Alice couldn't wait for their someday, when the war was truly won and they could stand in the sun on a bright afternoon, not a care in the world. It was coming soon, Alice thought. She could feel peace inside of her, bubbling just under the surface, ready for its turn. There would be peace soon, she thought as they approached the dilapidated house. For now, she would do her job. Then, afterward, there would be peace.

Frank and Alice approached with their wands up and at the ready, moving as one unit, their footsteps so light she couldn't hear them, even on the pavement. They seemed to anticipate the other's moves, always covering their backs and knowing what to do next. It was no surprise, really, that Dumbledore chose married couples to work as partners. They were so in tune already, and Alice knew how much Dumbledore believed in the power of love. Perhaps it was protecting them even now, she thought. Even here.

Her heart beat uncharacteristically fast when they knocked down the door and went inside. Immediately, she sensed that something was wrong and reached for Frank's hand out of instinct. It was already waiting for her. If they both felt it... Alice couldn't place the evil, exactly. The room was dark and foreboding, the wood floorboards creaking under their weight. Everything was still, perfect and still beneath a layer of dust. No air circulated through and the feeling was stifling.

It didn't seem wise to go looking for trouble in this place. They moved in far enough to close the door and waited, wands at the ready. Alice always hated this part, the waiting. But it was judicious. They knew their surroundings here and the longer they waited, the more familiar with them they would become. If they moved to an unknown location, they would be giving even more of an advantage to their opponents. So together they stood, side by side and waiting, not even daring to speak.

Time moved so slowly in those moments, counting each breath, thinking about what may happen to them. Someone was here, she was sure about it. It was just a matter of when they would realize someone had intruded, that someone was about to ruin whatever plans they had. Alice was able to count each breath of hers, each heartbeat. It gave her something to focus on in the terrible stillness.

Waiting for the evil to appear felt so much more active than waiting for a someday when the world was at peace again. She had to be constantly aware, looking around for any sign of disturbance, ready to take the initiative at a moment's notice. Even though she knew, deep down, that her job as an Auror was her attempt to bring about a better future for her son, it was still an idealized kind of waiting. This stillness in the foyer of an old house was not a waiting she could wish on anyone.

Then, suddenly, the waiting was over. Maniacal cackling made its way down the stairs, echoing off empty walls and preceding the footsteps of its owner. Wild hair fanned out from her face in all directions, and there was a kind of desperation beneath the woman's face that killed any beauty that had once been there. Alice recognized her from school, but only just. "Bellatrix Black," she said coolly. "I should have known you were one of them."

"Oh, Alice. Surely you must have heard. It's Bellatrix Lestrange now. Rodolphus!"

"Coming, love!"

"Isn't it beautiful," Bellatrix whispered as if she was confiding in Alice. "The way he thinks I love him?"

Behind her on the stairs came Rodolphus, his brother Rabastan, and a lanky boy, at least a few years younger than Alice and Frank, all of them eager, all of them seeming to turn to Bellatrix for direction.

"Oh, the Dark Lord wanted you two," Bellatrix said. "He was so incurably interested in how two young and inexperienced people could defeat him so often."

"There were many things the Dark Lord underestimated, Bellatrix. We were only some of them."

"Do not speak of my master with that tone, Alice. It won't make this any easier for you."

"I will speak of him however I want. He is dead."

"That is where you are mistaken. He will return, and when he does, I will have the privilege of letting him know that the four of us were the ones to kill you."

"Stupefy!" cried Frank before Alice had a chance to respond.

The battle that broke out around them was too difficult to keep track of, and spells were sent off in every direction. All Alice knew was that if they were matched two on two, she and her husband would have taken them down without difficulty. But with four of them against two, there wasn't any hope.

At least the battle itself was short, Alice mused, tied up in the basement of the house, her mouth gagged, her body incapacitated. And soon she and Frank would be dead. Somehow the thought didn't scare her. Instead she felt peace thinking about seeing James and Lily again soon. Wherever it was they were going, surely it would be the someday she had been hoping for. When Bellatrix came toward her with insane eyes and her wand raised, Alice didn't flinch. She stared unblinkingly at her enemy, waiting for the Killing Curse.

It didn't come. "Crucio!" Bellatrix shouted instead, and Alice, who had been prepared to die, had not prepared herself for the pain. A cry escaped her throat, muffled by the gag tied around her mouth, but all she was aware of was the pain seizing her body and the cries of Frank next to her. Her chair knocked over, her head landing with a sharp whack against the sturdy floors. Frank fell next to her and she could see him shaking violently with the pain.

Attack after attack came and Alice did what she could to keep her eyes on her husband. He kept his eyes on her, too, and I love yous spilled out of his eyes right alongside the tears and she knew she was the same. She saw him and she saw her son and she stopped keeping track of the hours, just waiting for the pain to end.

* * *

Upon opening her eyes, the bright whiteness surprised her. She vaguely remembered waiting for a bright day to come and this must have been it. She grinned and giggled, clapping her hands. "Oh, Alice, you're awake," came a matronly voice she did not recognize.

It took a moment for her eyes to focus on the woman, and she was surprised to see the woman looking at her. "Who's Alice?" she asked, looking around the room for another woman who might be Alice. All she saw was a crazy-looking blond man in the bed beside her. "And who's that man? He isn't named Alice, is he?"

"Maybe you should go back to sleep," the woman said, and she willingly closed her eyes. Sleep wouldn't come, though, so she listened to the conversations around her.

"I'm sorry, Augusta. Neither one seems to know who they are. They don't even recognize each other. I doubt they would remember you or know who you are."

"There must be some mistake." This voice was loud and demanding; she wouldn't want to cross this woman, certainly, whoever she was. "They've been in there for two weeks and you haven't made any progress with them? Do you know what it's like to have Neville wandering around my house looking for his parents? He's barely a year and a half. How can I tell him what's happening?"

"You don't have to, yet." In her bed, she felt a terrible sadness for this boy called Neville. She wondered what happened to his parents. But the thought didn't last long, because in the distance, deep inside her mind, she heard music. It was easier inside her mind, not nearly as terrifying as the bright whiteness, so she let herself fall and the music around her was happy.

Something nagged at the back of her mind, though, making its way to the surface in fragments like a different part of the symphony. There was a someday she had been waiting for, she remembered. But the peaceful place inside her mind was so perfect that she set about exploring, certain she would find it somewhere.


	24. Fall For You RonHermione

For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song Fall for You.

For Camp Potter: Fireworks Show with the pairing and the prompts "Look at me. Please."; burning; and edges.

Word Count: 936

Rating: T

Warnings: Sensuality, one strong swear word.

_Fall for You_

It was out of habit that Ron made his way to the guest room when it was time to sleep. They had only been married a few months, and already he could barely remember the last time he and Hermione had shared their bed. Their first fight as newlyweds was over something petty, but that didn't surprise him. Their fights had always been petty. One misplaced word, a sentence only half thought-through... it was always something like that. He'd barely spoken to his wife in the past two weeks. Just a "Hello," on the good days, when he came home from work. A call of "Dinner!" up the stairs when it was ready.

But at the dinner table itself they sat in silence, each focusing on their plates and avoiding eye contact. When Ron had talked to Harry about married life, he didn't say it would be this difficult. He felt a tinge of jealousy over his best mate and his sister, who seemed to get on so much better than he did with Hermione.

He kept his wardrobe in the guest room now, and found pyjamas to pull on. He crawled into bed, tried all his nightly routines, but he couldn't bring himself to sleep. He lay there instead with the light still on, staring up at the ceiling and wondering where he went wrong. There was a knock on the door.

"Ron? Can I come in?"

"Hermione?" He sat up, feeling self-conscious as if he were still fifteen.

"No, it's your neighbor. I just broke into the house to find you. Of course it's me, Ron."

He didn't stop watching the ceiling or turn to look at his wife. "You haven't said that many words to me in the past two weeks combined."

"Ron. Look at me. Please," she said, and he heard her footsteps getting closer.

Never good at disguising his emotions, Ron couldn't keep the shock from his face when he saw the state of his wife. Dark circles framed her eyes and her hair was far more bushy than usual. It looked like she hadn't slept well in... well, if Ron had to guess, he would say two weeks. "Are you okay?"

"Of course not, Ron. We've been married for three months and I haven't spoken to you in weeks. What happened?"

"It's just the same as it's always been, Hermione. It's just that before we lived together, the two weeks weren't so unbearable. Come sit down, love."

She moved cautiously toward him, like she was scared his anger would lash out again, or like it was the first time they had been close. The reservation on her face cut him to the core.

"This is not what I intended, Hermione. When I asked you to marry me, I mean. The way we've been living... you deserve better than me. I was bickering at you for being _too_ clean, _too_ perfect. What's wrong with me?"

Her face changed to compassion as she reached out a hand for his and though all she did was place her fingers against the back of his hand, it was the first time they'd touched since their heated argument and it sent sparks burning up and down his body, reminding him at least part of the reason why they decided to get married. "Nothing's wrong with you, Ron. I love you for exactly who you are."

"Rotten luck," he said, and meant it. "I know I screwed up this time. I screw up a lot. It's just sort of how I learn. And I learn really slowly."

Hermione smiled. "Can we start over? Let's say I never called you an inconsiderate slob and you never told me to stop being such a..." She paused, as if considering whether to quote him verbatim. Then she smiled and did. "Such a fucking perfectionist and-"

"Hermione! You swore!" A grin spread across his face, feeling foreign but welcome.

She shrugged. "I was only quoting you. Anyway, like I was saying, let's start over. Let's make tonight the night that I fall for you over again."

"You sure you want to do that? I mean, my socks smell and I leave them in the kitchen sometimes and I'm a bit of a slob and thickheaded and-"

"Ron! Don't make me change my mind. And don't talk about yourself that way. You're wonderful. I mean it."

"I'm a dime a dozen, Hermione, and you know it. You... a girl like you is impossible to find. I may have failed - no, don't say anything. Talk is cheap. I may have failed but I have loved you from the very beginning."

"I know, Ron, I know," she replied, and for once admitting she knew something didn't come off as pretentious. "I've loved you the whole time, too."

He pulled her close, marvelling at her touch that had been absent for a long fortnight. She sank into his arms and put her head on his shoulder and he was reminded again that she _fit_. Maybe they were a bit more... explosive in their relationship than Harry and Ginny were, but he didn't care. Their relationship was passionate and sometimes this passion showed itself for the worse, made them rough around the edges. But as he pulled Hermione close and took off her shirt to begin kissing her collarbone, all the good sides of passion tugged at him. Hermione climbed beneath the sheets and grinned. Ron's intelligence paled next to his wife, certainly, but he knew enough to not waste another second before joining her and falling for her all over again.


	25. Say Goodbye TeddyVictoire

Written for the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song Say Goodbye.

Written for Tech Discovery at Camp Potter with the prompt to write about Teddy Lupin and the optional prompts shooting star and ice cream.

Word Count: 1061

Rating: K

Warnings: None.

_Don't Say Anything_

You're laying on the beach outside Shell Cottage, half-hidden in the grass, but you know no one will come looking. "Zey are best friends," Fleur will say, "Zey never get into any trouble togezzer." And Bill will believe her and Dominique will roll her eyes, but she won't come looking for you precisely because she suspects what you might be doing and doesn't want to know for sure.

You love her whole family, you realize. And even though you're only nineteen and she's seventeen and you haven't even kissed her yet, you know your life will never be complete if she's gone. The issue, of course, is that she will be gone in just over twelve hours.

The sun sets behind you and it's chilly even in the summer air, but it's welcome because as she shivers, you pull her close and she places her head on your shoulder. In the distance, waves crash steadily toward the shore, predictable, soothing. Everything your life won't be when she's gone. As darkness overtakes the sky and stars come out, still you lay there in the tall grass and holding her and not saying anything.

You know both of your thoughts are on tomorrow, when she goes back to school and you don't. Last year was different, because last year you hadn't yet accidentally confessed that you loved each other. "Do you remember last December?" you ask, and the words sound strange in your throat because your tonight had passed in silence until now.

She nuzzles against your shoulder and giggles and says, "Of course I do."

"We swore we'd never change."

"I remember, Teddy. I remember everything about you and me, I promise."

So do you. The flashbacks come like shooting stars, falling one after the other in a meteor shower and you let them fall.

You're five and she is three and it's her birthday party. Already she's your best friend and you stand beside her while you eat ice cream, and later when she opens her presents, helping her with the hard ones. She looks up at Gramma Molly and back at you and whispers, "Teddy, why does Gramma look sad when I have presents?" And you don't know what to tell her, so you tickle her, but you're young and don't know how to be gentle yet. Harry chastises you, but you don't mind, because you can see her smiling now.

You're eleven and she is nine and it's a night just like this one because you will go and she will stay and nothing will ever be the same. You sit together at sunset by Dobby's grave, where she traces shapes in the dirt and refuses to look at you. "You're not going to be my best friend anymore, Teddy," she says, and you want to hug her but you don't. Instead you trace the infinity sign on the ground beside her shapes, make a T in one loop and a V in the other. "I mean it," you say. "I said forever. Hogwarts won't change that, Victoire, I promise." She looks you in the eyes and you know she believes you.

You're at school and you're both Gryffindors and you don't let anyone tell you that third years don't spend time with first years. You're studying for Transfiguration by sending your hair through every shade you can think of and she looks up at you, thoughtful, and says "I always liked it best blue, Teddy." And you never change it again.

It's last December and you're holding hands and it's the scariest thing you've ever done. You hope she can't feel you trembling. You didn't think you'd get butterflies around her when she is nearly seventeen and you've always known her, but they are there, taking shape in your stomach and rising up and you know you're falling in love. She's scared and you hold her and you tell her you love her before you realize what you're saying. You feel her heart skip against you and you're hoping... always hoping.

The meteor shower ends and you're back on the thirty-first of August when everything will be different. Because you finally managed the courage to ask her to be with you and she finally said yes and this summer has been perfection. You swore in December that nothing would ever change and it won't, _it won't,_ but you know it will. "I remember it all, too, Victoire," you say.

Her father is out on the porch and calling for you two to come in and you roll to one side to look at her, really take her in and try to memorize her before she disappears. "I guess it's time for me to-"

"No, Teddy. Don't say goodbye."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to hear those words tonight. If you'll still be here in December, don't say it. If you say it... maybe it's the end for us."

"You don't have to worry about me, baby," you tell her and tuck a perfect strand of hair behind her ear. "I should worry about you. There are so many boys at Hogwarts who will want you."

"But none of them are you, Teddy."

You smile, but you still see her father in the distance. "Well, I guess this is..."

"If all you're going to say is goodbye, don't say anything," she says, her attitude suddenly like her mother.

So you don't speak. You press your lips to hers and it's not magical at first, but together you make it into magic and you let yourself tell her everything she won't let you say.

* * *

Even perfect evenings can't postpone the morning. All the magic in the world couldn't freeze time, and you suddenly resent your magic when all you want is one more day with her. Growing up and getting older were the worst decisions of your life. But you can manage one more year without her. Can't you? _Can't you?_

Suddenly when eleven o'clock comes and your arms aren't around her and the train is gone, you lose sight of your own strength. How could seventeen years pass so quickly? Only yesterday, you were laughing at her childhood antics. Today you're standing alone on the platform when everyone else has left, and you're staring at the clock, wondering where time goes when the moments are over.


	26. Open at the Close NevilleHannah

For the Song Fic Boot Camp. Loosely based on Open at the Close, by Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls, with the prompt Fall.

For Camp Potter, Campfire Songs. With the mandatory prompt from the above song and the optional prompts desert and "No, really, I'm fine."

Word Count: 1956

Rating: T

Warnings: Sensuality, references to sex. One swear word.

_At the Close_

In the quiet aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, Neville took Hannah's hand and set off without telling her where they were going. He walked with determination set in his eyes, a fierceness that had only come after his year of leading the D.A., and Hannah couldn't help but respect him and marvel at how much things had changed.

But really, they all had changed, and she couldn't wait to get this year from hell out of her mind. "Neville?"

He didn't slow down, or even look at her. "Yeah?"

"Where are we going?"

"I'm looking for, just... here," he said and finally stopped in front of a strangely dressed woman Hannah recognized as Neville's grandmother. "Gran?"

"Ah, Neville. And Hannah, too. How are you doing?"

Hannah and Neville looked at each other for a moment, questions and pain going back and forth between them. They had lost Michael Corner, and little Colin Creevey. They lost Professor Lupin and Fred Weasley. No one was sure yet if Lavender would make it. When neither of them seemed able to speak, Mrs Longbottom continued. "Of course, dears. You've both been more brave than you should have to be. But really, Neville, your parents weren't much older than-"

"Gran?" Neville's voice was assertive, authoritative. "Gran, I don't want to talk about the battle now. Or my parents. I want to talk about Hannah."

Hannah turned to him, confused, and looked back and forth between her boyfriend and his grandmother. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you know where your dad is?"

She sighed. "No."

"Do you have any family you can go home to?"

Hannah couldn't keep the wetness from her eyes. It had only been a few days since the battle; her thoughts were still at Hogwarts and how to make Hogwarts better. "I thought so," Neville responded, letting go of her hand and pulling her close instead. "Gran, I wonder... could she come and stay with us? Just for awhile, until her father comes back?"

Hannah's head was against Neville's chest,but she turned enough to watch Mrs. Longbottom scrutinizing her. "She's a fine young woman, Neville. If she needs a place to call home, we'll provide it for her."

* * *

Living in the same house as her boyfriend was becoming increasingly distracting. When they started dating, the romance was only a short reprieve from the maniacal Carrows. Neville was leading an army, and the Carrows were using Hannah against him; she found herself tortured more times than she would care to remember.

Now, with survival no longer an immediate issue and Mrs. Longbottom gone more often than not, Hannah finally felt like she was in a relationship, getting to know Neville outside his role of stand-in lead of the D.A., and she was falling in love.

One Friday morning, near the end of summer, Mrs. Longbottom announced over breakfast that she would be gone for the weekend on business in Paris, and the two of them were expected to keep house. Hannah and Neville spent the rest of the meal unsuccessfully trying not to make eye contact, and Mrs. Longbottom pretended not to notice.

When she left later that afternoon, it was with much pomp. "Goodbye, dear Hannah! Goodbye, young Neville! I will be gone for nearly three whole days!" The couple chuckled and gave her obligatory hugs and kisses and waved goodbye before she Disapparated.

"So," Neville said, turning his gaze to Hannah nearly before the whole of his grandmother had disappeared.

"So," she replied.

"The house looks fairly clean to me for now. Any ideas on how to spend the afternoon?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him unashamedly. One kiss led to another and another until they blurred together like shooting stars. One of her hands snaked its way up into Neville's hair and another worked its way lower, to the hem of his shirt. It was unfamiliar territory; their kisses to this point had been chaste. Clumsily, she found her way beneath it to the bare skin of his back and pulled him closer.

His hands, too, were wandering, and he seemed to follow her lead. She shivered at the touch of his hand against the bare skin at the small of her back, and she mumbled against him, "Is there somewhere else we can continue?"

Neville pulled away long enough to grin, then returned to kissing her, pulling her close but stepping toward her and forcing her into backwards steps. It took far longer to reach Neville's room than she wanted it to, but neither of them seemed willing to pull away. He kept walking until she was against the edge of his bed and fell with her backwards.

Time stopped mattering for the next minutes or hours or centuries as they lay there, not interested in anything but each other. "Do you want to?" he asked sometime later when that was the only option remaining. She nodded. "Are you sure? We can stop."

"No, really, I'm fine," she said, and pulled him close.

* * *

When they woke up, it was past sunset, and Neville's naked form was pressed against her side. Hannah had thought that in the first sober moments after speaking, she would regret it, but she didn't, not in the least. _This,_ she decided, _this is what it really means to fall in love._ It was more pleasant than she could have ever imagined.

"Shit," said Neville when he woke up. "How could I do that to you? And at the first chance I got? Hannah, I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me." He got out of bed, suddenly ashamed of his nakedness, and found clothes.

"Neville Longbottom. I'm not sorry, and there's nothing to forgive. I started it. You asked me if it was okay. I said yes, and I don't regret it. In fact," she added coyly, "I wouldn't mind trying it again."

"No, Hannah, I took advantage and I'm sorry. I need to go."

"Neville, please-" She cried, but her sentence was cut off by the _pop_ of his Disapparation. He left with no goodbyes, with no kisses, with no explanation of where he was going. He didn't come back for twenty-four hours, and Hannah was certain, no matter how spotless Mrs. Longbottom normally kept her home, it had never been cleaner.

When Neville did finally walk through the door with puffy eyes and a hunch in his shoulders that hadn't been there since long before seventh year started, Hannah couldn't bring herself to greet him kindly. "You're back."

"I am, for now."

"What do you mean?"

"I went to London, Hannah. And while I was there, I saw Harry, Ron, and Kingsley all out to dinner at The Leaky Cauldron. Harry saw me and he waved me over and made me join them. He said... he said I deserved to be at the table as much as they did and I should really listen to what Kingsley had to say. While he was talking, it's like all the pieces of the past year came into place and I figured them out. It finally makes sense and the choice has been made. I know what must be done."

"Neville... what are you talking about? You're not making any sense. You're sounding like Harry did when he showed up in the Room of Requirement!"

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be. Kingsley is offering automatic inclusion in the Auror training program to anyone who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts."

"But you don't have the N.E.W.T.s for that! Even if we'd had a normal year at Hogwarts."

"I know. I told Kingsley this, but he said it doesn't matter. Training starts tomorrow, though. You'll tell Gran where I am?"

"Neville! You're being rash. You're making one stupid decision because you think you made another, and that isn't the right answer. At least let me go with you."

"No. I need to face this alone, Hannah. It will be dangerous." He paused, then added in a mumble, "And it has nothing to do with you."

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "If it has nothing to do with me, then why are you leaving all of a sudden?"

"I told you! I ran into Kingsley! He offered me the position!"

"When we were at Hogwarts, you always insisted that you led the D.A. simply because there was no one else. Without Harry, you temporarily filled his shoes. Harry is back, Neville. You don't need to fill in for him anymore. You don't need to pretend to be brave."

"My bravery stopped being an act a long time ago, Hannah. If you didn't know that, you don't know me. You know why I want to be an Auror? Because there are people who died. Michael Corner died right beside me. I watched the life leave his eyes, Hannah. And I can't let their deaths be in vain. There are still Death Eaters to round up and to fight. And I've been done sitting on the sidelines for years."

"You never mentioned any of this before."

Neville shrugged. "You never asked."

Her tough facade melted and she pulled him into a hug, which he accepted stiffly. "You're really deserting me? You have to leave me to do this?"

"I'm sorry," he replied as he pulled away from her. "I'll just go pack my bags."

Though he made no indications that she needed to do the same thing, she felt she had no choice. If Neville just broke up with her - and she believed he had - she couldn't continue living with his grandmother. She'd been here for months. What if her father was looking for her? All of Hannah's concerns about him immediately rose to the surface. Maybe it had been wrong to play it safe when her father might still be in hiding. But Hannah had always played it safe.

Now, even though he was leaving her, she would take his example and fake some amount of bravery until she actually meant it. She'd heard rumors that Hermione was going to look for her parents, soon. It was only fair that Hannah do the same.

Neville left early Sunday morning without a goodbye, and, since Hannah had already packed and there was nothing left to clean, she stayed in the sitting room with a book until the door opened and Mrs. Longbottom walked in.

Hannah knew she had to face her immediately, before she changed her mind. "I've intruded on your hospitality long enough, Mrs. Longbottom. I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I must go."

"Don't speak such nonsense, Hannah! You know you're welcome here for as long as you want."

Hannah sighed, looking bravely into the older woman's eyes. "I have to find my father."

"I understand. But if you ever need a place to stay..."

"I appreciate it, Mrs. Longbottom, but I don't think I'll be back."

"Hannah, I'm sure Neville-"

"Left for London this morning to sign up to be an Auror." Her response was curt, and she tried to keep her expression stoic, or at least unreadable. If a year under the Carrows had taught her anything, it was how to appear strong.

"He'd never mentioned before that he was going to-" She interrupted herself and Hannah watched Mrs. Longbottom's face change; a sad sort of understanding overcame it. "I see. Best of luck, Miss Abbott."

"I appreciate it," Hannah said, and without a second thought, she Disapparated as far away as she could manage and checked into the nearest Muggle inn. She would start the search for her father soon, but for the moment she simply needed to breathe.


	27. Yesterday GeorgeAngelina

For the song fic boot camp with the song "Yesterday" by the Beatles and the prompt "Family."

For Camp Potter Archery, Week 2, with the prompt to write about death.

For the (long-defunct) sad and depressing one-shot challenge, with the challenges to include jumps in time (flashbacks) and a character dealing with loss.

Word Count: 2031

Rating: T

Warnings: Sad... mentions of sex

_The Shadow Hanging Over Us_

Christmas was the hardest time of year for Angelina Weasley, and by now, she doubted that would ever change. Certainly, life was difficult on the second of May, but that was true for everyone. Everyone lost someone on the second of May. The reason Christmastime was so painful for her was not the anniversary of something sad, but a fleeting memory of the one time she was truly happy.

Now, as she busied about preparing the house for Christmas eight years later, she wondered if her marriage was a mistake, if her son was a mistake. She insisted on hanging the fairy lights alone while George worked and her two young children played nearby, still too little to understand that she was crying.

Underneath her tears, she was back in that place, early December, 1994. It felt like yesterday, when love was an easy game to play, a game she felt certain to win. Granted, not many romances started with an "Oi!" shouted across the room, but Angelina didn't mind. It was fitting, and she tried to be nonchalant as she agreed to go to the Yule Ball with him, but Alicia Spinnet eyed her afterwards, searching her face for the enthusiasm she knew was underneath. Then, when the two friends were alone, Alicia whispered, all seriousness, "Please tell me you're freaking out more than you're letting on."

Angelina erupted into a fit of laughter that danced in her eyes and her smile. "Fred. Asked. Me," she managed to say between giggles, leaving out the _finally_ that danced on the tip of her tongue. She was never one to care much about her looks, since she spent half her time on the Quidditch field anyway, but the night of the ball, she let Katie and Alicia fuss over her hair and makeup until they declared her perfect.

No one believed her, but she had always been able to tell the twins apart. George was quieter, more subdued. Fred was usually the instigator of all their mischief. And Fred had more freckles. As she walked down the stairs from her dormitory into the Common Room, Fred and George were both waiting at the bottom. Fred was wearing a purple bow tie and looked ridiculously handsome. "You look perfect, Angelina," he said, gallantly holding his arm out to her. Underneath dark skin and carefully applied makeup, she blushed.

Everything she had been fretting over that year seemed to disappear as she danced the night away with him, constantly aware of his hand in hers, of the delicate way he touched the small of her back. Like always, Fred kept up an air of jokes and mischief, but underneath it all, Angelina saw something else, something very like sincerity, dancing in his eyes.

A few evenings later, he confirmed it. In a date that could only have been planned by Fred Weasley, they'd pulled pranks on a few unsuspecting third years, then made their way to a broom closet to snog. Kissing him was more difficult than she could have ever imagined, because both of them felt the constant need to laugh and keep laughing about what they'd done. Finally, Fred verified everything she had hoped when he pulled away the slightest fraction and rested his forehead against hers. "I'm going to be joking the rest of my life, Angelina, but I'm dead serious when I say I want to be next to you the whole time."

Looking back now as fairy lights magically unwrapped themselves around the Christmas tree she'd bought with _George_ Weasley, her husband, Fred's words seemed cruel and heartless. It was as if he knew that one day that would be true, the way he would be joking for the rest of his short, short life.

Later, after she had reconnected with George, he told her in a solemn way that looked strange on his face about his brother's death. "He died laughing, Ang. I feel like I should be okay with it, knowing that he died doing what he did best, but I'm not. I'm not okay and I'm not sure I ever will be. Hell will freeze over if I die laughing, too." Angelina took his hands and smiled softly and she said she understood. "It's like all of a sudden I'm not even half of who I used to be. His shadow... it follows me everywhere. I had to take down my mirrors."

Even though that was years ago, she still isn't sure why she kissed him then, or if it was a good idea, or if she regretted everywhere it led her afterward. But she did and he even _tasted_ like Fred and that was enough to get her crying, even while their kiss grew deeper, even after George's tears joined her own.

Roxanne played happily near her now, loudly singing some Christmas carol, entertaining her little brother. They looked so happy, and Angelina didn't understand it because their whole family was built on the foundation of grief. Sometimes she wondered if her daughter, now four, could see it, see the sadness that bonded her mummy and her daddy together in the place where love should be.

For a few years after Fred died, Angelina wasn't sure whether she or George missed him more. Part of her knew, truthfully, that George was likely the worst off, but at the same time, there she was looking at a man who refused to look at himself, a man who was Fred's identical - with slightly fewer freckles and one less ear - who even spoke like him, and yet he wasn't Fred. George had never loved her before. Angelina thought, then, that the way he didn't love her showed in his eyes, but she knew now that wasn't true.

The truth was that all that remained in George's eyes was every ounce of love he could manage as half a person. And in the absence of his brother, who apparently called dibs on her on the train to Hogwarts as first years, George loved her as much as he could.

It took awhile, but soon they lay together in the tangle of sheets and even then, in the aftermath of what was supposed to be making love, they could only talk of Fred. "He really loved you, Ang."

"He loved you more."

"That doesn't matter; he had no choice in loving me. But he really, really loved you. And when I saw him... that day at Hogwarts, when I saw him lying there and my world ended, I leaned down and whispered in the ear that only he still had, the one that I could no longer match up in the mirror, I whispered that I would take care of you. Will you let me take care of you?"

She nodded, tears staining her face as she leaned into him. "I will."

That was his proposal and they were married in months.

They lived in the flat above Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, but George still hadn't reopened it after the war. "We have enough to live on," he insisted. "I can't go back in there."

"You have to, George. You know he wouldn't want you to give it up." After she spoke, George looked at her, his all-too-familiar solemnity in his eyes. Then he locked himself in their spare bedroom and didn't come out for days. Angelina would knock every few hours, ask if he was okay, if he needed anything. He accepted food from her, then returned to whatever it was he was doing.

After a week, he came out, looking sweaty, disheveled, but nearly happy again. "I couldn't reopen the store without a new product line, could I?" he said, and for a minute, Angelina thought the old George, the one she remembered from school, was coming back.

While George came out of his shell and became himself again, he spent all his hours in the shop, running it, making other people laugh, learning first not to frown, then, slowly, how to smile. But he worked such long hours that Angelina almost never saw him, and the more George-like he became, the more she found herself pulled inwards and backwards to the yesterdays where she had Fred.

Every now and then, he would come upstairs and sleep in the bed they were supposed to share. He planted kisses on her neck and told him how much he loved her, how grateful he was that she helped him find himself again, even if he only had half a person to be. But when he would make love to her, she had to keep herself from crying out, because she couldn't help but picture the only man she ever loved, a man who shared a face, but not a name, with the man she married.

She called out the wrong name once, only once, and he pulled away so suddenly she became disoriented. "What's wrong?"

"You said Fred."

"I didn't mean it," she said, sitting up, pulling the sheets with her. "I just-" But she couldn't finish her sentence, because there were no excuses.

A few months and a few calculations later, she realized that night had gotten her pregnant, and when she shared the news with George, all he said was, "If it's a boy, can we name him after my brother?"

"Of course," she said, then kissed him like an apology. They both needed a new face to attach the name to. With her skin color, a new Fred was unlikely to be the double of his father. He could be his own person in his recycled name.

That first child was a girl, and they both loved her so much it felt inevitable that maybe they would finally fall in love as well. The love she wanted to feel hadn't come, although her love for Fred was growing numb each day as well.

Now they had a young Fred to look after, and the tree was decorated, the children mild and happy while Angelina went through the motions, baking gingerbread with Roxanne, Fred wrapped in a blanket across her back. "Mum?" her daughter said as she cut out shapes from the dough.

"Yes, Roxie?"

"When will you be happy?"

Her face was a mask that even her four-year-old could see through. But she painted the mask on thicker and grinned, reaching across the table to tickle her daughter. "You make me happy, Rox. I love you so much."

"But when will you be happy in the other times?"

There was a moment when she considered lying to her daughter who observed too acutely for her age. But those bright eyes, that skin that met her parents halfway in color, but surpassed both in beauty, made it difficult. "I don't know, sweetheart. I've been trying to be happy for eight years."

"That's a long time, Mummy. Aren't there things that make you happy? Gingerbread cookies make me happy, and playing on my toy broomstick, and visiting Gramma Molly, and hearing Fred laugh. Don't those make you happy, too?"

Angelina's heart jolted at her daughter talking about Fred's laughter; again it took her back to yesterdays, to the Yule Ball, to the constancy of the elder Fred's own laughter. And yet Roxanne had a point. "Yes, they do. Maybe I just need to look a little harder for happiness."

On Christmas morning, more than eight years after Fred died, Angelina sat by her husband in front of the tree, their children surrounded by presents. Later on, they would visit all the Weasleys at the Burrow, but here in the early hours of the day, it was just the four of them. It had snowed the night before, and the temperature was still freezing, but the sun shone, reflecting brightly in the white snow. "Happy Christmas, Angelina," George said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

"Yes, it is, George," she replied. "A happy Christmas indeed."

And the shadow that had hung over them both for long, too long, seemed to fade away, lost in the cold sunshine of Christmas morning and Angelina thought that maybe, just maybe, after being married for so long, she was finally falling in love.


	28. Flow CedricCho

For the circular stories challenge, where I had to have the same line for the first and last sentence, with the characters ChoxCedric.

For the Song Fic Boot Camp, with the song Flow by Cage the Elephant and the prompt "Twenty."

For Camp Potter, Paintball: week 2, where I had to write about someone dealing with loss.

Word Count: 574

Rating: K-plus

Warnings: None

_My Fickle Heart_

There are some people who cannot be understood. I am one of them, and sometimes the only thing that I understand about myself is how little I make sense. The what-ifs wander through a brain that resembles the labyrinth that killed him, and I spend my time looking out of the window at the top of Ravenclaw tower, looking out over the grounds and trying to find a hiding place.

The rain in Scotland suits me. It helps, watching the rain fall on the glass of the windows, streaking like tear stains, making me feel less alone. I wonder if it would hurt less if I had turned him down for the Yule Ball. If I had gone with Harry to start with, and never let myself fall for Cedric, maybe I wouldn't have fallen so far myself when he returned, dead, from the labyrinth: the first casualty of a war no one was expecting.

Would I have felt guilty for turning down the nice Hufflepuff seventh year who somehow find me worth noticing? Could I have turned him down for the possibility that the most famous wizard in the world would notice me, too? It seemed too much to ask for, to be noticed by two of them, and so I said, "Yes, Cedric, I'll go with you," and he treated me like a lady and I nearly forgot Harry Potter until he, too, asked me to the ball.

Turning him down was, and remains, my biggest regret. If I had just left Cedric, given him a taste of heartbreak in December, maybe I would never have fallen so hard for him and had my own heart broken when he died. He was too young to die, and if what Harry has told me since is any indication, there was no reason for his death. "Kill the spare," You-Know-Who said, but he didn't know Cedric.

Cedric was never a spare.

He deserved every happiness, so much more than my fickle heart that loved two people at once and lost them both because of it. Did I choose wrong? Did I? Did I?... it echoes in my brain like madness, and even later, when Harry kisses me, I still wonder. Can he be my second choice? Can I be around him without thinking of the man I had already lost? What if I am some kind of magnet, attracting those who would go on to die so young? Harry has already been through so much.

Our first date is Valentine's Day and I want him to reassure me, to let me know that it's okay to miss Cedric, but he doesn't. He seems distracted and keeps looking to the window, to other couples, anywhere but to my face, and I can't help the tears that fall so often these days.

Then he tells me he has to meet that other girl, the one he must love more than me, and I know I didn't make the wrong decision; Cedric was the better man. But he's gone now, dead and gone, for so long - nearly an entire year. I count backward from twenty in my head, hoping that Harry will realize his mistake, but he doesn't. He gets up to find her and I wait... wait for him to tell me that he loves me, that the other girl means nothing to him. But he doesn't. There are some people who cannot be understood.


	29. Drive By NevilleHannah

For the Song Fic Boot Camp and the Songfic Challenge with a Twist, with the song "Drive By."

Word Count: 1,375

Rating: K-plus

Warnings: None

_Because She's Waiting_

Neville felt like he was back in the dungeons, taking Potions at Hogwarts. The list of hopeful Aurors from his class had never been higher; Ron and Harry, Anthony Goldstein and Su Li; Ernie Macmillan and Susan Bones; and Neville. Proudfoot always had them work in pairs and the pairs were always the same. Every now and then, Harry would cast him a glance and whisper, "Sorry, mate," when Ron would immediately pair him, but for the most part, it was as if his year of leading the D.A. never happened. Once again, Neville Longbottom was the awkward student, the third wheel. And with this repression of his confidence, his magic, which had been improving exponentially, suffered as it had under Severus Snape.

When he arrived for training that morning, standing up tall between Ron and Susan, Proudfoot marched into the room, arms behind his back, looking over the trainees. If it hadn't been for the scrutinizing he experienced under the Carrows, he didn't think he would have been able to maintain eye contact. "Longbottom," Proudfoot said.

"Sir."

"Step forward."

Neville did so, one small, sure step. His past had taught him how to pretend, at least, that he had no fear. Proudfoot looked him over, eyebrows furrowed, large frame too close for comfort. "You face me like you have something to be proud of and nothing to fear. But your magic is mediocre at best. Explain yourself."

He felt his eyes water and his hands shake and his lips quiver, and he couldn't answer the question. Living through the torture of the Carrows was one thing; learning from it was something he was proud of. But remembering it, letting people know why he changed, was still too difficult. It was easier to hide behind a facade and pretend like everything was okay.

"Proudfoot, sir," Harry finally said behind him. "From what I've heard, the last year at Hogwarts..."

"I didn't ask you to speak, Potter. Today we're working on human transfiguration. As an Auror, this is the most important skill you have. Aurors constantly need to go undercover and being able to don a convincing disguise is imperative. Perhaps Longbottom would like to demonstrate?"

Transfiguration was Neville's worst subject. He didn't even continue on to N.E.W.T. level in the subject. Under the pressure of Proudfoot, he was back with Snape in the dungeons, and the two years since he worked in Transfiguration were showing. He tried; he honestly tried to get his hair color to change from blond to brown, but within a few moments, the involuntary laughter from his fellow trainees reached his ears.

"Weasley, you show him how to do it properly," Proudfoot said, refusing to look Neville in the eye. Ron sauntered forward, raised his eyebrows apologetically at Neville and then promptly removed the freckles from his face, his hair changing to strawberry, then blond, as Neville watched. "Thank you."

Neville couldn't take it anymore and walked straight out of the Ministry. The training, of course, wasn't the only problem. He'd walked out on his girlfriend more than a month ago and hadn't seen her since. The likelihood of Hannah wanting anything to do with him again was low; after all, he'd walked out on her when things were at their best, simply because he was scared as hell he was going to screw them up.

When he left the Ministry, he had every intention of Apparating straight back to his gran's, but on the other side of the familiar street stood a girl with blonde hair and a searching look on her face. While Neville stopped and double-took at the sight of her, it couldn't be true. What would she be doing in London except looking for him? And that certainly wasn't the case.

Before he left her, she'd been living with him at his gran's house, and she moved away when he left, presumably to get as far away from him, and the wreck he'd made of their relationship, as she could. But now that woman was perking up at his face and smiling and walking toward him.

"Hannah?" he said, cautious.

"I've missed you, Neville." But as she looked him over, the grin that showed up when he said her name quickly dissolved into a frown. "What happened to your eyebrows?"

"Transfiguration was never my strong suit. Speaking of which, Hannah, can we go somewhere to talk?"

She blushed. "That's why I came, actually."

The pair made their way to The Leaky Cauldron. "Hannah! Good to see you," the barman called when they walked in.

Neville looked at her questionably and she shrugged. "I've been spending a lot of time here." She turned to the barman. "Two butterbeers, please, Tom."

Neville reached into his pocket for change, but the barman shook his head. "On the house for you two."

They made their way to a secluded corner, sipping their drinks. It was Hannah who broke the silence. "So, how've you been?"

She looked so sweet, so much more sure of herself than she was a year ago. The war, the year with the Carrows... they changed everyone. He wanted to skip the "How you've been"s, the niceties, the things that acquaintances did, and get back to the more than friends they were used to. But he was the one to leave her. Maybe it was better to take it slow.

"I wasn't cut out to be an Auror," he said suddenly, surprising himself. "I shouldn't have left you. It's like I'm a first year again."

Hannah grabbed both of his hands and stared at him. "Neville Longbottom. You fought against the Carrows for a year. You led the D.A. by yourself while you watched your friends get tortured. You can be an Auror if you want to."

"I left you. Why are you being kind to me? I don't deserve you anymore, Hannah. When I left, you moved away the same day. Gran said so. She said you needed to get away from me when I left you."

She sighed across from him and sipped her butterbeer, and it seemed to take forever for her to answer. "I needed to find my dad, Neville. You leaving made me realize that I was hiding in our relationship. I didn't want to face him and it being just the two of us, but I needed to. And I got in touch with him and came back to find you. I still love you. I don't think that one night was a mistake."

"You don't?"

"No. I never did. I wasn't just saying that to make you feel better. It was sort of the highlight for me."

"Me, too," Neville said, blushing. "But I thought..."

"You thought wrong."

"I didn't leave because I was through with you, you know. I was, frankly, scared as hell. I knew then that I really fell for you. I thought I screwed it all up, so I left."

"I thought that leaving was the biggest mistake you made. But even then, it all worked out. My dad and I are living in London now. I think we both needed a little time to get our heads together. But now... can we pick up where we left off?"

Neville didn't feel like answering her, so he leaned across the table to kiss her instead. He didn't realize until his lips were against hers just how much he missed the feeling, and it took all his self-control to pull away.

"I'll take that as a yes?"

"Absolutely, Hannah. I'm going to be there for you. Whenever you need me."

She squeezed his hand. "Except for when you're at Auror training."

"I just walked out on them! I told you; I'm not cut out to be an Auror."

"There are a lot of things you didn't think you were cut out for. I think you should try. Make it through the training. Remember what you told me before you left? There are still Death Eaters to fight and you are done sitting on the sidelines." She stood up and took his hand. "Go back to training, Neville. I know you can do it. And I'll be waiting outside to walk you home."


End file.
